costo pastilla cytotec peru letrasIn early September, Sydney-based eyewear company Oscar Wylee celebrated its third birthday with a party that, from the outside, looked like a consortium of beautiful people whose magnetic pulses ignited and clenched together, all simultaneously: models mingled with bloggers; models who are also bloggers then mingled with chefs who moonlight as photographers; Instagram stars cavorted with other Instagram stars. The Daily Telegraph called it a “host of rising stars in Sydney’s creative scene,” and I’ve flattered myself as part of that statistic.

Most guests wore their own glasses (mine are Tom Ford), and sheepishly exchanged their exalted labels for the dubious relief of a relatively unknown brand, which has only recently begun advertising with even lesser-known models (mostly company friends). But Oscar Wylee makes nice glasses. They use “premium Japanese titanium and custom Italian acetate,” according to their brochure, the same materials employed by the usual suspects under the Luxottica umbrella. Oscar Wylee also provides a home try-on service: customers can order five pairs to be sent to their home, which typically arrive in three business days. Shipping is free.

The brand’s studio is located at the old Sussex Street Public School, which was designed by George Allen Mansfield in the timely Victorian Gothic Revival style, and opened in 1877. Between 1913 and 1945, after the school had succumbed to falling enrolment, it was used as a storeroom for the Education Department. Then, for the next 45 years, the building was established as an annex to the Sydney Technical College: chemistry, physics and biology was being taught in luminous chambers when social and political upheaval was banging at the door.

The Oscar Wylee studio is drenched in silence and then, occasionally, pools of light that swarm in from dagger-shaped windows. It’s a serene cross between a retail floor and a seminary, with books by godheads—Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, Leo Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, and Roald Dahl’s Going Solo—falling under the weight of their own gratuitous solemnity. The optical designs have fabular names like Montgomery, Gatsby, Baxter, Merriweather, Pascal and Frye. Behind the studio, in the courtyard, hangs a plaque in memory of a “valiant Port Jackson fig tree cut down in its prime—October 1980.” The patina has pedigree and funk.

Last month, after discovering that over 60 per cent of its home try-on customers are based in the area, Oscar Wylee unveiled a new store in Chatswood, North Sydney, designed by architects at Smith & Carmody. Mirrors and display shelvings, rendered in zig-zags like ligneous teeth, line the walls. The tables in American white oak were commissioned to local furniture designer Jonathan West. Lighting fixtures were a collaboration between Japanese designer Nendo and Swedish lighting brand Wästberg.

Oscar Wylee was founded in 2012 by university students John Teoh and Michael Lim, who has since left the company (it is now spearheaded by Mr Teoh and his brother, Jack). The founders, during a trip to Japan, had decided on a whim to catch a bullet train with no destination in mind, and found themselves in a shanty town, where they took sanctuary among hot springs. Mr Teoh and Mr Lim met “this old, funky Japanese man” who called himself Oscar Wilde, and, having misheard him, referred to the sage as Oscar Wylee for the rest of their visit.

Oscar Wylee frames begin at $99 for one pair and $149 for two pairs. The company works with the Sight for All Charity and Rose Charities Cambodia: they make a monthly donation to these non-profit organisations, commensurate to the cost of sourcing all the glasses sold in the past month.