Interview with Andy Hunt, Co-Founder of Warby Parker

Andy Hunt, Co-Founder of Warby Parker

Warby Parker might just be one of the coolest brands in the fashion business. They make super high-quality glasses, sell them exclusively online for only $95 (with or without a prescription), and let you ship up to five pairs at a time to try on for ten days at home. From thick frames to classic and conservative frames, the brand’s lineup has it all, and we were thrilled to speak with Warby Parker co-founder, Andy Hunt. (And here’s to Prepidemic’s 1,000th post.)

Prepidemic Magazine: How did you get the idea for the brand?

Warby Parker: I actually graduated from Brown in 2004 and I worked in New York for a number of years. I lost my glasses all the time, so I would always have to go to Lens Crafters, or the boutiques. And I would be spending a fortune and couldn’t believe it would be that expensive. So I figured there had to be a solution.

Additionally we found Restoring Vision, which is one of the largest nonprofit eyewear distribution companies. And what they do is basically distribute eyewear to people who are earning less than $4 a day.

So basically we thought we could design and produce eyewear what was as high if not higher quality than a lot of these glasses by Chanel and Prada. So we did a whole bunch of market research, developed some designs and that’s how it got started.

Prepidemic Magazine: How are you able to provide these high quality frames at such a competitive price?

Warby Parker: The key is really cutting out the middleman. The industry is basically an oligopoly with these large companies, and what they own is manufacturing. The glasses aren’t actually made by Chanel. They’re not designed by Chanel. What they do is sell these factories’ product and stamp their name on the exterior of the frame. So these places design them, they manufacture them, and they sell them through Lens Crafters and Pearl Vision. So they own the entire production process from start to finish, and they can basically sell these glasses for whatever they want, so it’s a giant rip off.

So we cut out the middleman and do all of our sales from the internet, which certainly reduces a lot of the cost for us. But mostly we choose not to charge an astronomical price.

The Fillmore in Tennessee Whiskey

Prepidemic Magazine: What’s your role in designing the frames? Are you guys just taking other factories’ designs?

Warby Parker: We design 100 percent of the frames in house. We design, we manufacture – all in house.

Prepidemic Magazine: How’s stuff going since the big write-up in GQ?

Warby Parker: Obviously being in GQ has been really good for us. We’ve got a great publicist, she’s very good for us. Obviously it generated a lot of sales and we’re growing as rapidly as we possibly can. It’s a pretty exciting time.

Prepidemic Magazine: How’d you get the idea for home try on? We actually don’t wear glasses but often feel a bit awkward walking into a store and trying glasses on that we want to wear, only to tell the salespeople that we don’t have prescriptions. Was part of the idea to make things less awkward?

Warby Parker: That’s actually an interesting angle – I have heard it in the past, but I wouldn’t say it’s the primary reason. The home try on is really for the fact that we really feel like we have a great product. All of our plastics are custom fitting and the designs are great, and we believe that if you get the product in front of someone, they’re going to be compelled to buy it.

Prepidemic Magazine: So what’s on the horizon for you guys? Any new frames coming out?

Warby Parker: Sure, we are constantly designing and tinkering. We’re going to add some plastics, but right now we’re really focused on the more boring but very important stuff like prescriptions.

Prepidemic Magazine: Do you guys get customers buy frames without prescription lenses and wear them with the clear lens?

Warby Parker: Yes. A large number. I think very fashionable, urban-type settings there are a lot of people wearing what we call a “plaino lens” which is just a high quality plain lens with no prescription. A lot of the editors and very fashion-forward people are wearing plain-o lenses.

Prepidemic Magazine: How do you feel about people wearing plaino lenses… you wear prescription lenses, right?

Warby Parker: So I actually wore prescription lenses my whole life, but I had Lasik surgery right before I went back to school, before we started the company. And now I wear plaino lenses. I wear frames without prescription lenses all the time.

The Miles in Sandalwood Matte

Prepidemic Magazine: That’s awesome. We’re trying to push more guys to go for that look because we think glasses are such an awesome accessory and compliment to your wardrobe.

Warby Parker: Oh absolutely, and we’ve always felt that way. I think that part of our business is doing prescriptions and getting the absolute right prescription, but we see our glasses looking great on people that don’t need them but just want to wear them as a fashion accessory.

Prepidemic Magazine: How are the monocles selling?

Warby Parker: (Laughing). It’s doing well, you know, I’d say we have certain people who get them with a prescription in them, and a bunch of people want it as a plaino lens, as an accessory to just show people. We’ve sold out of a bunch more popular frames we’ve had, but it’s doing well. It’s an attention getter, both for us and the people that wear them. And actually a lot of older people, they’re into buying the monocle. They read menus at restaurants and need to see it up close.

Prepidemic Magazine: What should a guy be looking for when he’s trying on a pair of glasses?

Warby Parker: The one thing you see over and over again, are that glasses are really very personal. So that’s one of the reason we offer the home try on – we want people to take time with them, and that’s also why we offer the virtual try on – you can go on our website and look at a pair of frames on an uploaded picture of your face.

And everyone’s so different, so that’s why we try to have a complete line of glasses: 27 shapes, 3 or 4 colors per shape.

So we offer some of the bigger, thicker, chunkier frames – which I’m a huge fan of and are what I wear when I’m out – the Huxley’s, the Filmore’s, the Roosevelt. And then we have more traditional, smaller, boxier frames that can be a bit more functional and professional for the office. It’s all to offer an array of options for personality and what people tend to use them for.

We’ve always said glasses are an accessory. So you might have a big thick pair of chunky frames for going out. And you might have a smaller more conservative pair of frames for the office or for going to class. And then the colors – we have a baby blue and then there are much more traditional colors.

Prepidemic Magazine: Any plans to launch some wire frames?

Warby Parker: We’d like to. I think we have a set of designs we’ve looked at and thought about for wire frames. They can be a bit more complicated to produce. But right now we want to make sure we’re perfect in the areas we’re dealing with now. But we’ve definitely thought about it.

“Interview with Andy Hunt, Co-Founder of Warby Parker”