The 'Monocle' Blog

Your world is about to get a whole lot clearer.

Goodbye 2020! Wow, year one done! It's been a heck of a ride, but truthfully, it actually came and went pretty quickly! Everything we had aspired to create finally came to fruition on February 29, 2020 when we first opened our door to the public. All of the planning, designing, researching and anticipation came to a hush as that door swung open to give Monocle its first breath of fresh air. We didn't know who was going to step foot in our practice, but that's half the fun! From that day, we saw new faces as well as familiar ones, and we are beyond thankful for everyone that has graced Monocle with their presence. However, one month later came Covid-19, and with heavy hearts we were forced to close that very same door which we had worked so hard to open.

Stigma? Stigmata? No no. Astigmatism . Everyone’s heard about astigmatism, but what actually is it? Well, once it's differentiated from its other misnomers, we can learn a bit about it! Astigmatism isn’t a scary disease, it's actually quite common! It refers to how light bends when it comes into the eye. Because the eye is generally a spherical shaped structure, if it’s not perfectly spherical, then light scatters when it comes into the eye. This leads to starburst effect on lights and shadowing of objects in our vision (sound familiar?). In a nutshell, this is astigmatism! Astigmatism comes from two structures in the eye: The cornea – the front surface of the eye. If this is a bit steeper along one meridian, then we’d call it corneal astigmatism . Some people have been told their eyes are shaped like a rugby ball rather than soccer ball, which is certainly one way to think about it! The lens – housed inside the eye is a lens that does a lot of our focussing. This too can have an unequal curvature to it which can scatter light. We call this lenticular astigmatism .

We hear it all the time: “I’ve been told I can’t wear contact lenses” or “I wear multifocal glasses, so I don’t think contact lenses are for me” and “I can’t wear contacts because of my astigmatism”. We’ve heard it so much it makes our eyes roll (pun intended). However, the truth is that there is a contact lens for nearly everyone!

When we finally saw our North Fremantle clinic completed, we were humbled by how great it looked! However, it took a lot of hard work from some very special people in order to get to that stage, and we’d like to share that journey with you.

Here are the top 5 frames we are loving right now, and why we love them! We're a optometry practice located in North Fremantle WA.

Every so often, there is a pair of glasses is unique enough to stop us in our tracks. This is what happened when we saw the model “James” by Veronika Wildgruber and that feeling flourished as we viewed the whole collection.

A very hot topic at the moment, but also a bit misleading. As we live in a digital age, most people have heard about lenses that block blue light. But what do they actually do? In short, they block blue light which is emitted from our screens (computers, phones, tablets), which reduces glare and supposedly helps with our sleep patterns. Blue light is a short wavelength, higher energy light, and there’s a lot of it in our natural environment, even from the sun. We can now put a coating on a pair of glasses that will reflect blue light. Recent studies have suggested that excessive amounts of blue light from our digital devices alters melatonin production, a hormone responsible for regulating our sleep cycle. So, we always tell people that if your eyes are fatigued and you feel your sleep patterns aren’t great after screen time, then a blue light filter might help.

We hopped on a plane this year to Paris in search of the coolest eyewear! Once a year, the optical community descends on Paris to emerge themselves in all things eyewear at Silmo, the world’s largest optical fair. This year Monocle Optometry loaded up on baguettes and macaroons in search of the newest trends. We spent four days talking trends, sustainability, durability and transparent design processes. Not only did we try, try and try on frames, and then tried some more, but the designers walked us through the why, where and how of their design process, as well as their motivation and ethics. The brands Monocle showcases are not only fashionable but handcrafted from beautiful quality parts. Veronika Wildgruber inspired us with styles we have never seen before: bold brows and chunky acetate. They are strong, independent and distinct. She designs for Hermes so you know these frames are quality pieces that will transcend the years. Tavat use a Tactile hinge to build frames in a way that is totally unique. They also take inspiration from the soup can to produce revolutionary frames. Timeless, functional and iconic; Andy Warhol eat your heart out! Gotti showed us that rimless frames can be unbelievably trendy and completely customisable, with numerous colour and lens shape designs. Think minimalistic with character, a refined aesthetic with Swiss precision.