The Bespoke Glasses I'll Wear Till The End

I’ve been wearing glasses since college. I’ve had vintage pairs here and there, but a few years ago I heard about Maison Bonnet in Paris, which makes bespoke eyeglasses. They’ve done glasses for Saint Laurent, Le Corbusier, I. M. Pei—you know, famous glasses wearers.

The idea of having a pair of glasses that was uniquely mine became really appealing. It’s a significant investment, but I wear them every day, so it felt worth it. Glasses define your visual presentation. It’s often what people see first, you know?

So I made an appointment with Steven Bonnet, who’s the fourth generation of the family, and met with him at the shop at the Palais Royal. He looked at my face—scrutinized it—as we talked. It’s a funny process. Although having someone stare at you intently like that is a luxury, it’s also somewhat off-putting. But he was gentle and lovely. I tried on a bunch of frames. He made modifications based on my feedback, and then he drew out a frame for me. A few months later, I went in for my fitting. You go into this subterranean workshop where they’re cutting acetate and firing and melting. You sit with them and they shift this and play with that until it fits perfectly.

The stems of my glasses are the same as on Le Corbusier’s glasses. And the frame was adapted to my facial structure, like rounding out the eye shape. They even engraved a B on the inside of the stem for me. It’s amazing to have a pair that I know nobody else is walking around with.

Even if I were to get new glasses, I wouldn’t change anything. It’s odd, the idea of landing on something and staying with it. I think of myself as moving with the ebbs and flows of style. But this has become my distinctive eyeglass shape that will be the same from now until . . . the end, I guess.

Photograph by Florence SullivanSittings Editor: Crystal Okonkwo

Grooming: Devra Kinery

This story appears in the September 2025 issue of EsquireSUBSCRIBE