Walk into most high street opticians, and the frames on the wall were chosen by someone in a buying office who has never met you. They picked what sells in volume across hundreds of stores. That is a perfectly sensible way to run a chain. It is a poor way to find designer glasses in Birmingham that actually suit you.
Here is what goes wrong with that approach. You end up with a frame that fits the average face, in a colour that flatters nobody in particular, made to a price rather than a standard. It looks fine in the mirror for a week, then quietly annoys you for two years. We have seen it many times, usually when someone brings in a pair bought elsewhere and asks why they never quite got on with them.
At Brittain Opticians on Harborne High Street, every brand we stock was chosen by hand, often after our team has travelled to international trade shows to see it in person. This piece walks you through the European designer frame brands we have deliberately chosen and, more usefully, why each one earns its place. By the end you will know which maker is likely to suit how you actually live. If you would rather just come and try them, you are always welcome to book an appointment.
Why a hand-picked collection beats a big wall of frames
A larger selection is not the same as a better one. When a range is curated by people who fit glasses every day, every frame on display has already passed a test: does this last, does it sit well, and will it genuinely suit somebody who walks through the door? Frames that fail quietly get left at the trade show.
This matters more than it sounds. The brands below are largely independent European makers who answer to their own design standards rather than to a quarterly sales target. That shows up in the things you feel rather than see on a label, like a hinge that still works perfectly after three years, or a frame light enough that you forget you are wearing it. Because these are the details that decide whether you love your glasses or merely tolerate them, they are exactly the details we buy for.
It also means our shelves look different from one season to the next. Our optometrist Matt Rose and the dispensing team bring back hard-to-get frames from trips abroad, so the collection evolves rather than rotating through the same global bestsellers. The trade-off is honest: you will not find every brand in every colour on any given day. What you will find is a frame chosen because someone here believed in it.
So what are those brands, and who is each one really for? Let us start with the one that changed eyewear design entirely.
Lindberg: Danish minimalism for people who hate fuss
If you have ever taken your glasses off at the end of the day and felt the relief of red dents disappearing from your nose, Lindberg will make sense to you within about ten seconds of trying a pair. This is the Danish brand that pioneered rimless titanium eyewear in the mid-1980s, working with the architects Dissing and Weitling, and it has been collecting design awards ever since.
The detail that matters day to day is the screwless spiral hinge. Conventional frames fail at the hinge because a tiny screw works loose, and you end up back at the optician for an adjustment that should never have been needed. Lindberg engineered the screw out entirely. The result is a frame that holds its alignment, resists corrosion, and weighs so little that some models come in under two grams. People who wear glasses every waking hour notice the difference by lunchtime on day one.
Who does Lindberg really suit?
We often reach for Lindberg with two kinds of patients. The first wears glasses from waking to sleeping and is quietly worn down by weight and pressure marks. The second wants to look considered rather than decorated, the sort of person whose whole look is understated and deliberate. Lindberg is also genuinely made to order, so frame shape, temple style and colour are chosen for you rather than off the peg. It is a commission, not a purchase, and it tends to be loved for years rather than seasons. That longevity leads naturally to the opposite temperament, the person who wants their glasses to be seen.
Face a Face: Parisian colour for people who want to be seen
Where Lindberg whispers, Face a Face is happy to speak up. This Parisian house designs frames as objects in their own right, with architectural shapes, layered acetates and colour combinations you simply do not get from a mass producer playing it safe. The brand talks about revealing personality, and that is not marketing fluff. A Face frame is meant to be noticed and remembered.
Picture a teacher who has worn safe, invisible frames for fifteen years and arrives slightly daunted by the idea of anything bold. We start gently, with a shape that flatters, then introduce a colour that lifts the whole face. The moment it lands is unmistakable, because people stop describing the glasses and start describing how the wearer looks in them. That is the point of colour done well: it does not shout over you, it works with you.
Face a Face suits the person whose wardrobe already has a point of view, the one who enjoys a statement coat or a bold lipstick and wants eyewear with the same confidence. It also suits anyone tired of the apologetic frame, the one chosen to disappear. If you would like to see colour used properly, our designer eyewear collection is the place to start, and it pairs beautifully with precise dispensing, which brings us neatly to Swiss engineering.
Gotti and Orgreen: precision and craft you feel before you see
Some quality announces itself loudly. Some you only notice when something is wrong, and with these two makers, nothing ever is. Gotti is the Swiss name in our collection, and Swiss precision is not a cliché when it is sitting on your face. The tolerances are tight, the finishing is clean, and the frame does the quiet work of fitting properly without drawing attention to how it manages it.
Orgreen is the Danish counterpart, beautifully made by hand with a colour sensibility that is bold without tipping into loud. We frequently suggest Orgreen to someone who wants character but not theatre, the person who would feel overdressed in the brightest Face a Face yet finds Lindberg a touch too quiet. It sits comfortably in the middle, which is exactly where a lot of people actually live.
Here is the honest part, the kind we would rather say in person than leave you to discover later. A superbly engineered frame still underperforms if it is dispensed badly. The lenses have to be centred on your eyes, the frame adjusted to your face, and the fit checked properly. We labour over this because it is precisely where craft is won or lost, and it matters just as much when the lenses themselves get technical, as they do with our next two choices.
Mykita and Maui Jim: Berlin design and serious sun protection
Mykita has been handcrafting eyewear in Berlin since 2003, and the brand has built its reputation on inventive use of modern materials and clever technical solutions rather than ornament. The look is contemporary and architectural, and it appeals strongly to people who care about design in the rest of their lives, the ones with opinions about furniture and typefaces. A Mykita frame is a quiet signal to people who notice these things.
Maui Jim earns its place for a different reason entirely. Good sunglasses are not about a logo on the temple; they are about what the lens does to light. Maui Jim’s polarised lenses cut glare and lift colour in a way that genuinely changes how a bright day looks, which is why we keep recommending them for driving, water and travel. Protecting your eyes from UVA and UVB is as important as protecting your skin, because those rays contribute to cataracts and other eye conditions over a lifetime of exposure. Style and eye health are not in tension here; they arrive in the same frame. You can see more in our designer sunglasses range, and the same protective thinking runs through every eye examination we carry out.
One honest caveat is worth stating plainly. The right brand depends on your prescription, your face, how you spend your days and what you want your glasses to say. A guide can point you in a sensible direction, but the final choice is made properly in person, with the frame on and an experienced eye looking back at you. For an independent view on protecting your sight long term, the College of Optometrists sets out the clinical thinking we work to.
Bringing it together
The thread running through every brand here is intention. Lindberg removed everything unnecessary until only comfort and clarity were left. Face a Face decided eyewear could carry colour and personality. Gotti and Orgreen prove that quality is often something you feel rather than see, and Mykita and Maui Jim show that good design and genuine protection can live in the same pair. None of these makers became a high street default, and that is rather the point of choosing them deliberately.
If you are weighing up designer glasses in Birmingham, the decision is less about which brand is best in the abstract and more about which one fits the life you actually lead. The good news is that you do not have to work that out alone, and you do not have to commit to anything to find out.
A simple way to start:
- Think about how many hours a day you wear glasses, since that points strongly towards weight and comfort.
- Decide whether you want your eyewear to blend in or stand out, as that narrows the field quickly.
- Bring the clothes and the life you actually wear them in, not the idea of them.
- Come and try a few on with someone who fits frames every day and will tell you honestly what works.
Whenever you are ready, pop in to see us on Harborne High Street or book an appointment online. There is no pressure to buy, just a proper look at frames you will not find anywhere else in the West Midlands, and an honest opinion from people who chose every one of them for a reason.
