“I really like the idea of rimless eyeglasses. It’s a pity they are not suitable for me.” That is a comment I heard today from a client who was looking at our collection of Lindberg Spirit frames. Needless to say, I was intrigued. “What makes you say that you cannot wear rimless frames?” I asked. “Well, I really like the idea of rimless eyeglasses, but I was told that I can’t have it because of my high prescription and because the lenses would chip too easily”.

This statement addresses 2 major issues that many high prescription wearers perceive as major limiting factors when it comes to
choosing aesthetically appealing spectacle frames:

1. Your lenses are too thick for nice rimless glasses
2. Your lenses will chip or crack when you put them into a rimless frame

Both statements were true maybe 15 years ago and they still are if you take an old fashioned plastic lens. However, these days modern lens technology allows us to fit reasonably high powered lenses into attractive rimless frames. Lens manufacturers such as Essilor for example provide us with lens materials and designs that allow us to make even high powered lenses look
aesthetically nice and attractive. A huge improvement has also been achieved with these lenses when it comes to chipping or cracking. The materials used for these lenses is such that it is very tough, making it extremely hard to crack or chip such a lens, even when used in rimless designs where holes have to be drilled through the lens so the bridge and sides can be fitted directly to the lenses.

We look at every case individually and determine exactly how thick a finished lens might be and what it will look like. In terms of strength, the new high-index lens materials are so tough, that it doesn’t really matter how thick or thin a lens is, provided there is a minimum of around 1.8mm around any hole that may have to be drilled into the lens.

Essilor provides us with several solutions that vary from medium dense, over high dense to ultra high dense materials. The highest grade of those is what we take when a high powered prescription requires it. The advantage of such a lens over a standard ones are:

In an earlier post I described a case of a client with a fairly high powered lens who decided he wanted just such a rimless frame. You may want to read that post again, just to refresh your memory. I am not saying everything is possible, but these days we have to say “no” less often. And with the help of really sophisticated anti-reflective coatings we can make even high powered glasses look very attractive.