Never Enough Notes e-zine // reviews + interviews + music

Robert Roope, the 67-year-old founder of the specialist eyewear website Retrospecs and brand Black Eyewear, names his spectacle designs after iconic jazz musicians. Black Eyewear glasses, frames and sunglasses reflect retro vintage styles of the 40s, 50s and 60s.

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“It was my way of paying tribute to the music that has given me so much joy over the years,” he says.

When he was growing up, Roope never imagined he would become an optician. He was born in Hull in 1943. When he was 16, he joined the navy and sailed to Peru as an Apprentice Navigation Officer. But in the end it didn’t work out. “You get to see an awful lot of sea in the navy,” he explains. “I decided it wasn’t for me.”

He studied to be an optician in London. After graduating, he worked manufacturing lenses for the American Optical Company, moving first to Denmark, and then Singapore. When he moved back to the UK in 1979 he opened up his own opticians in St Albans.

By the middle of the ’90s, after nearly 30 years both making and selling glasses, Roope had built up a collection of over a thousand frames. He didn’t know what to do with them, so he decided to try and sell them. “I always stocked unusual frames because as an independent you can’t compete with chains on price, so you have to compete on variety. So I had a big stockpile of interesting frames from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, things that I hadn’t sold, and others that I had acquired over the years.” Given that his stock was all vintage, it seemed like a good idea to call the company Retrospecs.

In 1999, he launched the business online. Even though all the frames were vintage, they had never been worn. Bizarrely, there were complaints from Which? magazine, which objected to the fact that he was selling prescription lenses to go in the frames. “I think this was mainly because we were one of the first people selling prescription lenses online,” he says.

A bigger problem was that Roope’s personal supply of frames was finite, and replenishing his stock from defunct opticians around the country was unsustainable. Add to which, some frames he just couldn’t find. “For example, in the opening scene of The Italian Job, there’s a guy driving a Lambourgini wearing a Persol frame. I can’t find it anywhere. I’ve been asked for that at least ten times, so I’m always on the look out for it.”

In 2006, Roope solved his supply issue by creating the retro-styled Black Eyewear range, born from a love of music. “It was inspired by my collection of over 200 jazz albums, many of which have a picture of the musician wearing glasses on the cover,” he explains. It was called Black Eyewear because initially all the frames were black. “It’s always the first colour to run out in a range,” he says.

Since it was launched in 2006, Black Eyewear’s retro styling has slotted perfectly into the fashion world’s obsession with all things vintage. Roope’s frames are a regular feature in glossy magazines, not to mention films — they were used in Quantum Of Solace. Meanwhile Johnny Depp has been seen wearing glasses by Black Eyewear’s self-explanatory sister brand Retro 50s. Face furniture doesn’t get much cooler than this.

The Retrospecs website and Black Eyewear range have changed glasses design as we knew it. “I was at a trade fair in Paris recently,” says Roope. “Someone from a French company called Face À Face, who make some very nice glasses, said to me, Have a look round at all the vintage that’s creeping in thanks to you guys. You’ve had such an influence. I think it’s true. Most people who design frames in the world use our website to get ideas. I suppose it does annoy me a bit but there’s nothing I can do about it,” he laughs.

Fancy a little piece of eyewear history yourself?
We have a very special pair of the lovely Melody sunglasses to give away to one lucky winner.

MELODY (in the image above) are retro 50s-style glasses named after the 20th Century jazz wonder Melody Gardot (1985-), jazz singer-songwriter.

To enter our fantastic competition, all you need to do is comment on this article, with the answer to this question:

Q: Which magazine complained of Roope selling prescription glasses online?

The competition winner will be contacted by email after the closing date of  Friday 25th June. Best of luck!