“Opticians learn about optics – very few learn about cosmetics”
Creator of The Frame Style Guide, Robert Roope, speaks of why he signed up for a 12-week a make-up course with 20 women.
OPTICIAN Robert Roope, the founder of Black Eyewear who has created glasses and sunglasses for men and women for more than 30 years, tells how and why he fits his designs to customers’ faces and why he took a make up course to do just this.
“I’ve always advised my customers on how wearing a certain frame can affect the facial characteristics, but I always found it difficult to talk to male customers about aspects of face shape and suitable frames. I struggled to get the message across face to face and sometimes got some strange looks!
“I thought I really had to say a bit more than ‘oh, that’s nice’ and you can’t only say ‘oh yes it suits you’ – I wanted to explain more on ‘why does it suit you?”, he said.
So naturally he decided to sign up for a cosmetics course at a local college in St Albans.
“I found a 12-week evening class with 20 other women and went along to join up. Well, they looked me up and down – as they probably would – and I was told the course was only for women. They were kind of saying, I suppose, that they didn’t allow ‘funny blokes’ in!”
But Robert’s reason behind his interest in the course was simple, despite being a little unusual. As he said, opticians study optics – not cosmetics.
“I wanted to learn more about the face shape and what women (and men) do to make the face look nice: eyebrow shaping, cheek shading, colours etc, so I suggested to the teacher, a lovely Polish woman, that I could bring my wife along to be a model.”
After some persuasion, Robert was signed up.
“We had a lot of fun and laughs along the way, it was a very funny experience, but at the same time it really helped in what I was trying to achieve,” he said.
Among other things, Robert learned about different face shapes and how make up, applied in the right way, could make the eyes look bigger and wider, how cheekbones could be shaped and how nose shapes could be changed by different shading and colouring.
And he began to understand that spectacles can have the same effect as make-up. For example, spectacles with a colour emphasis on top of the frame, or a light lens tint can work the same way as eye shadow. Or, the upswept curve of a ‘cat’s eye’ frame can create an uplifting soft line also achieved by eyebrow shaping.
He also took in some of his frames designs and tried them on the other students to see how they affected their facial features. He completed the course and by the end had a perfect understanding of how glasses can change the appearance of a face. For the first time he knew that glasses could also be a cosmetic tool, rather than simply making you see better.
Since this course – 20 years ago – Robert has put the emphasis, when designing frames, on the character of the individual face.
He gave the example that one particular client was interested in a couple of his frames, the Alice and the Tatum, but was undecided about the colour.
Robert explained: “She was undecided between the dark maroon/red colour and a brighter, red transparent shade. She had dark circles under her eyes and as a result, the darker colour, which does not allow much light through, left her eyes in constant shadow, which made the circles look worse. However, with the red transparent colour, the light filters through and makes the eyes look brighter. It also gets rid of shadows and makes the skin look warmer. It knocked ten years off her age.”
However he still found it difficult to communicate to male customers what he had learned. So, he recorded some youtube videos with tips on how to choose frames for different facial characteristics and got some really positive feedback, showing there was real demand for professional advice of this kind.
“I knew if I could give tailor-made advice to each individual, instead of just generic tips like a square frame makes an oval face look squarer, that this would be popular.
“I needed something with which the general public – and I mean all over the UK and worldwide – could go to the website, use a webcam, leave a photo of their face and send it to me. I could then get back to them within a week with a free consultation and advice on frame shapes, designs, colours and size which would suit their facial features – and head – best. It’s a personal, tailor-made service you don’t get anywhere else,” said Robert.
As a result the ‘Frame Style Guide’ was born and Robert has received enquiries from all over the world.
Since initially setting up in 2009, he has given more than 1000 consultations.
“As far as I know the Frame Style Guide was the first of its kind in the world as it was the only optical interactive consultation service,” said Robert.
And he added that he works best with imperfect faces, which he says is most of us, the everyday person on the street, so the guide’s appeal is practically universal.
To access The Frame Style Guide, go to:
http://www.robertroope.com/framestyleguide/
For Youtube tips of finding the right frames for the individual face, go to:http://www.youtube.com/user/specster