Historic eyewear outfitter Maison Bonnet makes its debut in London

You’d be forgiven for thinking fitting glasses is a relatively simple affair: a decent perch on the bridge of one’s nose, and two ears on which to rest the arms surely sufficing for most when it comes to selecting spectacles.

Fortunately, for the rest of us, there are those who have tended to disagree. Amongst them: the great polymath Le Corbusier, the couturier Yves Saint Laurent, and shipping tycoon (and Mr. Jackie O), Aristotle Onassis.

All three sought refuge from high street opticians and their racks of ‘ready-mades’ in favour of custom-tailored eyewear. And not just any bespoke bins either, but those produced by the fourth-generation family-owned Maison Bonnet, which has just opened its first atelier outside France, in Stafford Street, London W1.

In keeping with the brand's reputation amongst the ocularly-challenged, it’s a discreet affair: a small shop on a street that connects Albemarle Street and Dover Street in “WoBo” (West of Bond Street). However, its exclusive environs are configured with opticians and technicians to reinforce the mission statement that good vision (or just relief from the blinding sun) is a matter deserving serious attention.

It’s a notion nobly abetted by Franck Bonnet, who, together with his father and siblings, heads up Maison Bonnet’s operations in Paris and Burgundy (where all the spectacles are hand-crafted).

It’s a painstaking business and not just the fitting, either. In addition to measuring the perfect breadth, depth and angle of the “nose box” and calculating the pitch or “tilt” at which the arms attach to the “ears” (ensuring the lenses lie in the correct plane across the eye), the Maison Bonnet team is also required to perform a stern adjudication of the client’s facial features, together with a swift appreciation of their overall character.

As Franck explains: “My father always says, the shape [of the glasses] is inscribed in the face.”

Once that inscription has been read, the selection of frames can begin: starting with around 20 blanks derived from the innumerable bespoke models Maison Bonnet has created over the years.

There’s a further option, which is to lightly customise the small ready-to-fit collection (20 styles in a series of 20 pairs apiece) using a “made to measure” service, but the real reason to be here is to design from scratch a pair of one’s own – a process that rates as one of the most interesting two hours you can likely achieve whilst standing.

So what bespeaks a pair of bespoke Maison Bonnet glasses? Beyond those bold shapes so beloved of those mid-century titans of society and style, it’s the expert use of – and access to - tortoiseshell. Now firmly controlled under the CITES treaty, Maison Bonnet has nevertheless dedicated several lifetimes to perfecting the matching of multiple layers to create its eyewear’s trademark hues.

Buffalo horn is rather less malleable, making it less suitable for the trademark wraparound “ears” that identify many of its iconic styles, for which there is acetate - an organic resin designed to mimic tortoiseshell that’s widely used in the industry, if not with quite the same degree of endeavour.

The bespoke service involves around 60 hours of hand work in Maison Bonnet’s Burgundian atelier, and takes around two months to complete, after which a full “face fitting” takes place to check the fit and the correct alignment of lenses, ensuring a marker of personal style that should, assuming one’s prescription is regularly updated, last a lifetime.

Bill Prince is the deputy editor of British GQ

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