“I’m in the market for Buddy Holly glasses,” he said.
He was in the right place. Started in 2010 by four friends at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Warby Parker keeps prices low by designing its own geek-chic frames, cutting out licensing fees, working directly with suppliers and eliminating markups by selling directly to consumers online, who provide their prescriptions.
So what’s next? Opening its first store. Rethinking the retail experience at a temporary shop at 45 Grand Street, it jettisoned the salesman behind the counter. Instead, shoppers were invited to try on as many preppy, retro-style pairs as they liked in a giant yurt installed inside a raw, 4,000-square-foot garage. And what happens in that temporary store, especially on New Year’s Eve, is a lighthearted shopping party.
The space was shared at times with the publishing house McSweeney’s, a letterpress studio in Brooklyn called The Arm, the hat maker Yestadt Millinery and the twinlike D.J.’s AndrewAndrew, who rounded up bad holiday gifts to donate to Housing Works.
“We had this big open space and wanted to reflect SoHo’s creative movements like Fluxus and the Wooster Group,” said Neil Blumenthal, a founder of Warby Parker, which is based in the nearby Puck Building on Lafayette Street. He also explained the festive circular tent concept: he once broke an arm dog-sledding in Minnesota and stayed two nights in a yurt. Somehow, this counts as a happy memory.
In the cocoon, the young crowd (progressive lenses are not available) played with pair after pair of glasses, soliciting opinions from loved ones, friends and strangers. The scene was nonchalantly fashionable. “You can’t throw a rock in here without hitting a designer,” said Chuck Routhier, a furniture and graphic designer. His girlfriend, Jennifer Buoncontri, was trying on large black rectangular frames, cringing and decreeing, “I look like a cartoon character!” (She didn’t.) The bold look grew on her. “At $95, they are just like another accessory — earrings or a scarf.”
Adding to the festive atmosphere, many colors are named after cocktails. The Tennessee Whiskey, for example, is reminiscent of the color of Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Lachlan Carter, visiting from Australia, was soliciting his personal focus group for the Jasper in Whiskey tortoise and the Everett in Gimlet tortoise. “I heard about it on Facebook,” he said, intently considering his options in a mirror. “I couldn’t believe the price.”
Travis Talmadge was watching his two sisters (together they are triplets) try on pretty much every pair, before redeeming the gift certificates he had given them for Christmas. They hooked up at the store with a friend, Joe Liotta, who had a plastic sword sticking out of his knapsack for a New Year’s Eve pirate-themed party later.
Mr. Liotta fake-moaned that he was lured to the shop under a false pretense: “Warby Parker? I thought we were going to a bar!”
The store’s name was an icebreaker. For the record, it is derived from two characters in Jack Kerouac writings: Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker. Jessica Thurston, an environmental analyst who works nearby, said she heard about the pop-up store from a co-worker, and said: “Warby Parker. I’m there! That sounds hipster!”
Not everyone was impressed with the price. Norman Cherubino said he had purchased glasses at Zenni Optical online for $6.95. A partner in a branding and communications firm, Mr. Cherubino was also lamenting the lack of wire rims among the acetate frames, but nonetheless was holding four Huxleys (named for Aldous) in his hand.
His friend, Robert Rainey, who was visiting from Maine, was shopping as well. “I need a backup pair of glasses for when I travel,” he said. “The pair I’m wearing was over $400.”
After the store’s last day this Sunday, shoppers can go back to Warby Parker’s Web site, where they can sample five pairs of frames at home without shipping fees, and upload photos to friends or to the company’s Facebook page for opinions. (Shoppers can also visit its satellite displays in boutiques nationwide.)
But nothing, it seems, beats real-time feedback. Inside the yurt, it was a chorus of “How does this look?” “What about this?” “Does it make me look fat?”
Even with all the advice available, Mr. Peters, the Washington visitor, snapped a photo of his nouveau rockabilly look to send to his mother. “I’ve never bought a pair of glasses without my mother making a face while I’m trying them on,” he said. “I can just get them online after she weighs in.”
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