Things people ask

Lens width, bridge width and temple length, in millimetres - the same three printed inside the temple of almost every pair of glasses in the world. Lens width picks your size; bridge decides whether it slides; temple length decides whether the arm reaches your ear.

Usually a steel frame with adjustable nose pads - the Tondo, Sole, Vela, Scirocco or Isola - with the pads angled inwards. Among the acetates, avoid the 21-22 mm bridges and look at the Lido or Riva. If you already own a pair of ours that slides, post it to us and we will re-set it free.

Almost always it is heat: acetate softens above about 60 °C and a parked car reaches that in July. Warm the temples gently with a hairdryer and press them in, or let an optician do it in a minute. It is the material behaving as described on every acetate product page, not a defect, but we will re-set it free if you post it.

Yes. Every lens we sell is UV400, meaning it blocks 100% of UVA and UVB to 400 nm, whether it is a pale yellow or a silver mirror. The UV filter is in the lens material, not the tint. A darker lens is not more protective; it is just darker.

Because LCD screens emit polarised light and the lens filters it. Tilt your head and the screen comes back. Petrol pumps, some car dashboards and bike computers do the same. It is on every polarised product page; if you look at screens outdoors a lot, choose a plain tint instead.

Polarised for driving, water and snow. Gradient for cities and terraces, where you want to read a menu without taking them off. Mirrored for very bright light, with the warning that the coating scratches first. The lens guide sets them out side by side.

Mirror coatings are a few microns of metal and they mark before the lens underneath does; we say so on every mirrored product. Scratches from use are not a guarantee claim, but a replacement lens can be fitted at cost - write to us with a photograph and we will say what it is before you decide.

No. We make sunglasses only and we do not glaze prescriptions. Most opticians can fit prescription sun lenses into any of our full-rim frames; the half-rim and sport frames are harder.

Hinges - a hinge that loosens beyond adjustment, seizes, or snaps - and lens coatings - a mirror, anti-reflective or hydrophobic layer that peels, lifts or crazes - within 2 years of purchase. We repair where we can and replace where we cannot, and we pay postage both ways.

Scratches on lenses, acetate that has loosened in heat, steel that has bent, chipped acetate tips, plating worn by salt and sun cream, and silicone nose pads or chain loops that have perished. Those are the materials doing what the product page said they would do. We will still fix most of them, at cost, if you ask.

Email a photograph and roughly when you bought it. We do not ask for a receipt if the frame is clearly ours. A reply with a prepaid label comes within a working day.

No. You have a two-year statutory right to goods that conform to the contract under EU and Italian law regardless of anything on this site. The guarantee sits alongside that and adds to it.

Because you did not buy the frame to advertise us. One temple carries the three fit numbers and the tint category on the inside, printed small, because you need those. Nothing else, inside or out.

No. Every front is drawn by us and cut to our own pattern, in shapes we name by what they are - square, round, pilot, cat-eye, oversized, sport. Nothing on this site is a version of another company's design, and nothing is sold under anyone else's name or model name. The terms say the same thing in legal language.

In shape and colour, yes. Tortoise and marble acetates are cut from mottled sheets, so the pattern on yours will not sit in exactly the same places as the one photographed. We say so on each of those pages.

Orders placed before 14:00 Italian time on a working day leave that afternoon. Later than that, the next morning. A tracking link arrives when the label is printed.

Trying them on indoors is fine; wearing them out is not. Returns need to be unworn, unscratched, in the case with the cloth, within 30 days. If something fails after wearing, that is the guarantee, not a return.

Unopened, yes. Once a cloth has been used we cannot resell it, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

To the UK, Switzerland and Norway. Import duty and local VAT are collected by the carrier on delivery in those three countries and are not in our price.