Press Release - Slow Food Eyeglasses come to Halifax

Ocean Optometry, Halifax (July 02, 2013) - Eyeglasses, like many other products, can often travel thousands of miles before arriving at the final retailer for sale. A more environmentally responsible alternative has arrived at Ocean Optometry.

 “When we first met with Drift Eyewear and were introduced to the range, we were blown away by the ethos of the company and the ingenious design solutions at which they have arrived,” commented Dr. Euan McGinty.  Drift Eyewear’s hand-made frames have created a unique solution in eyeglasses combining a natural acetate front and timber sides.  The frames take their design ingenuity from the architectural world as well as from nature.

“While wooden frames aren’t new”, optician Michael Bonang added, “Drift’s solution has allowed for the combining of more fragile reclaimed or sustainably sourced woods with perfectly managed weight distribution throughout the frames. This makes the frames comfortable and well-fitting”.

Drift Eyewear frames have an acetate front, definitely the look of the season, and timber sides.  “We felt that these frames also provided a great connection with the Maritimes”, said Dr. John Wilson, “There are several different options for the temples. I t was great to see a maple wood option and we were incredibly excited by the range called 12 Meter which uses reclaimed boat timbers”.

Ocean Optometry is an independent optometry office recently opened on Blowers Street in downtown Halifax.  Working with other independent companies is incredibly important to their business and Drift Eyewear is a perfect fit for this philosophy.  Being pioneers in eyewear fashion, Ocean Optometry is delivering options which have never before been available, not just within the HRM, but the across the whole of Atlantic Canada.  Assistant Erin Hensler explained, “Drift Eyewear supplies only a few retailers in the whole of Canada and none east of Ontario.  From initial order to arrival, we have waited almost three months for these frames, but when you are selecting a hand-made, small-run speciality product it is definitely worth the wait.”

The range is available to view at:

Ocean Optometry

5240 Blowers Street
Halifax
Tel: (902) 446-4470
ww.oceanoptometry.ca

Our local outlook

It may seem a strange thought to hear Ocean Optometry talking about loving things local, especially when you hear our accents!

Although it is true that Dr John Wilson and Dr Euan McGinty are "from away", they bring with them a global perspective and a broad reaching level of experience and importantly a deep rooted understanding of why local is so important.

One of the main reasons that using local businesses is vital for any community can be seen from cold hard statistics.  Recent studies have demonstrated that generates 3.5 times more wealth for the local economy compared to chain owned business.  What does this mean beyond the statistics?  That the money spent within the community stays within the community - it is used in other local businesses, it is used to support local community projects and activities, it creates jobs and opportunities within the community and it enables the community to grow and flourish.  With chain owned business a good proportion of the same money is syphoned off to support the very existence of the chain itself, it's corporate needs and offices, the corporate staff and perhaps on activities such as national advertising, etc.

What may be thinly hidden from the general public, however, is where the ownership of an office lies.  At times offices can be owned by national or multi-national chains.

This is one of the reasons that Ocean Optometry takes its responsibility as a local business seriously, we try to work with other local businesses first and foremost.  We recognise that this isn't always possible and we also need to consider where the ethos of local is.  So we very much look at our local responsibility on a global scale.  Having a desire to bring the best products to the local community we have ensured that we look at the companies we work with and, where possible, will choose a company with a local ethos similar to our own.  We like to work with independent companies who share the same ideals and principles as ourself.

We encourage you to share our love of local, consider where you make your purchase and take on a local outlook, with a global twist (funny accents optional).

A great source for all things local in Halifax is I love local Halifax:



Keep up to date with their website and follow them on twitter, you'll be amazed as to how busy the local scene is.

More info on local V's chains can be found here:

Click to Enlarge Image



Why Buying Local is Worth Every Cent Infographic by CustomMade

Six Weekiversary

Victoria Day – our six weekiversary!

What an amazing 43 days!

 

Ocean Optometry officially opened its doors for business six weeks ago on Victoria Day. In that time we have now performed many more eye examinations than we dared to anticipate and we’ve helped people choose some beautiful eyeglasses. We’ve worked with our lens suppliers to bring crystal clear vision in the optically and cosmetically best way possible. We’ve even fitted people with contact lenses for their very first time.

We are amazed by the response that we’ve had and also quite humbled. We’ve had complete strangers tweet to us that our store looks great as they’ve walked past. We’ve heard comments that it is “glasses heaven” and that we have “too many nice glasses”.

Since our earliest plans were being laid, John and Euan wanted to create a truly unique optometry office. From the interior design, to the eyewear ranges, through the advanced IT infrastructure to our engagement via social media. We wanted to be dynamic, vibrant, on trend and urban. Most of all we wanted to have fun while we did it. This is the reason that four friends have chosen to work together and even though, like all good friends, we have had disagreements and ‘heated debates’ we’ve stayed true to our core principle and loved every moment of it.

This Victoria Day weekend we closed on the Monday, to get a chance to spend time with our loved ones and recharge our batteries. We've come back refreshed and hungry for success.

This is where we now need your help. Our office is very much in a David and Goliath situation. We are a small local office, competing in an industry worth billions of dollars. We are creating our own space against competitors with years of trading history and incredibly deep pockets for advertising budgets. We are also competing against offices who you may imagine are local and yet are owned by national corporations with hundreds of offices.

You can help, though, by spreading the word.

We would love if you tell people about Ocean Optometry, perhaps someone needs an eye examination or you feel they could do with new eyewear. Perhaps someone has a red eye and needs immediate attention. Whatever the reason, we would be incredibly grateful if you could tell people about Ocean Optometry and your experience with us.

We would love for you to follow us on Twitter, like us on facebook or review us on Yelp!

If you’ve just picked up your new glasses, tweet us a picture of them, or post a picture to our facebook wall.

Whatever you can do, however you can spread the word, we would be honoured and grateful.

We too hope that you had a great Victoria Day weekend and, most of all, are having fun,

Euan & John

Dr Euan McGinty & Dr John Wilson

co-owners and eye-geeks to the core.

We're now open for business

Ocean Optometry opens its doors!

After what seems like a lifetime of preparation, we are finally opening our doors for the first time in a few short minutes.  In the clinic today is Dr John Wilson, with Erin and Mike there to keep everything running smoothly.

All of the preparation will hopefully serve us well, everyone is really fired up to ensure we provide the highest level of attention to detail and service quality possible.

If you would like to make an appointment then please feel free to call on (902) 446-4470 or use our contact form, you can also now call in to the office as we are open!

Many thanks to everyone involved in getting us to this point.

Gatecrahsers, Glasses & Getting Funky

On Friday night we had our opening party to celebrate getting everything together.  It was a great success, with many friends joining us to share in the celebration and we partied into the late night!  We attracted quite a bit of attention and some passing revelers called in, some taking a little time to browse around, with a promise to call back when we were open properly!

The office simply looked amazing!

With the bright, airy open dispensary it made a great area to have a party (and has given us inspiration for future events!).  Several hours of funky tunes were already selected in our play list, which kept everyone grooving along.  We were also visited by Snap Halifax, who knew it would be that kind of a party!

Our photographer-in-residence, Brad Avery, spent a lot of time with everyone, getting a great selection of photos for us to view later.  Brad has some great ideas of photo shoots when some of our ranges come in, so it is going to be exciting working with him as our go to guy for Ocean Optometry images.

We were even gatecrashed by a local star of screen and stage - once we have the photographic evidence we'll update our news!

Here's a photo from the night with the Ocean Optometry eye geeks crew altogether:

John, Erin, Mike & Euan

Remember, we are open for real from the 8th of April, please feel free to send us an e-mail or give us a call for an appointment.

It's started!

John, Erin & Mike hard at work.  Euan's supervising!

We all arrived at 7.30am this morning, keen and eager to get into the finishing week and to meet with the truck delivering our equipment.

Guess what ... no truck!  They'd forgotten and should be with us, oh, about an hour ago!  Never mind.

We got cracking with putting together some of the furniture and cleaning up the windows.  The first collections of frames have already arrived, but we're good and not opening the box until we get some of this work done first.

We've got some great Eye Tunes to keep us motivated this morning - so far it's been Fat Boy Slim and The Human League.  I suspect it's going to get more 'eclectic' as the day goes on!

Vision East Expo - Sunglasses! Sunglasses!

While it was almost all work at Vision Expo in New York, there were some moments to enjoy trying on some of the cool new eyewear (for research purposes, of course!).

Here are a some pictures:

Mike modeling an ic! berlin.

Euan sporting the special edition ic! berlin "Splash"!

Euan, John & Mike all featuring the ic! berlin special edition "Psycho" collection - only sold as a set of 3!

John, Mike & Euan - a little more relaxed on the last day.  Safe in the knowledge that we now had some awesome collections to open with!

Euan, John and Mike had a hectic visit to New York.  The trip started very early on a cold Friday morning, but we were all full of excitement and energy, this was going to be a trip like no other!

The sole purpose of this trip was to meet with the best eyewear providers in the world in one single location so that we could put together the most wonderful collection of spectacles in a single location.  Read all about our trip in the various news posts.