If you're heading to LA Eyeworks, if the experience I had was any indicator of their normal customer service, I'd say it's not really worth it unless you're doing their annual clearance sale. LA Eyeworks makes some pretty cool designs that are fashion forward and very unique, but beware of the design that you pick -- while the style may be timeless, the build quality may not live up to your expectations. Steer clear of their painted metal frames - nice looking, but they won't stay nice looking for very long. The handmade acetate framed models however are a steal.
I scored a pair of beautiful gradient painted titanium frames here during their annual clearance sale. It was a splurge at $125 (down from ~$450) when most of the other frames were marked down to prices from $25-$75, but I figured they were a longterm investment to last me for a while. However, the paint job started to flake off impressively within just 3 months of daily wear, to a point 9 months and many scatterings of paint flakes later where the previously stylish looking frames were looking rather pathetic, half-painted affairs naked all the way from the outer halves through the ear pieces.
I'm not a person who wears her glasses particularly hard or in rough conditions - this was the first time I've ever had this happen with a pair of glasses. Prior to this I've worn a similar pair of painted metal frames from Costco for 6 years without this level of spectacular paint shedding, and this is what I base my opinion about my experience on. I expect designer, branded frames to not only have a higher design standard, but to also be of higher quality and last longer than generic ones, so I was a bit astonished. This had to be a mistake or a defect, right? LA Eyeworks is supposed to make some really great, high quality frames, right?
I called up the store to explain this situation and see what they could do to fix it, and their response was that I could simply buy another pair and that they'd do me a big favor of letting me buy the same style again for the $125 clearance price. Not pleased with that response of putting the responsibility right back on me as a customer - why on earth would I want another pair of the same frames that didn't work out in the first place? But I guess what else can the store staff really do when it's not their fault but the fault with their incredibly low quality manufacturing? I was more than a little surprised that the store seemed ok about letting their customers walk around advertising a pretty bad example of their product quality without taking a measure of responsibility about it, and wondered if this was their regular customer service, or an attitude that they reserve only for customers who purchase during their sale time. I don't know if this was a fluke and the rest of their metal items during the sale are ok, or if in general they offloaded lower quality items during the sale and that if I'd bought something at full price this would have happened (the paint flaking, and the staff telling me to just buy another pair.)
I already had a second pair of frames from that same trip purchase, but these frames, also a painted metal design, even with me handling them as gingerly as possible in light of the first pair's demise, resulted in a disappointing repeat experience -- they started to chip and flake within 3 months. I can only conclude that in general, the paint job on the metal frames at LA Eyeworks are a total bust.
The only salve in this experience and the reason why I didn't give them a 1-star was the third pair that I had bought in that same purchase. I had bought two pairs of metal frames and one pair of sunglasses with acetate frames. These sunglasses have lasted without incident for the three years that I've had them.
I got designer glasses for a comparatively cheap price, but I feel like I didn't really get the high-end quality nor the high-end customer service that I expected would go with it. On the bright side, if I total what I spent all three, I guess it would equal the price of one non-sale pair of sunglasses. (But if I had known this was going to happen, I would have just skipped the sale and bought one pair of sunglasses, period!) read more