Mia 059

"Mia, can check your looks with the hand mirror first? These are extravagant glasses but perhaps on the wide side for your face"

"Good idea". The model had a quick look in the mirror, then removed the glasses and said

"I see what you mean but I'll take my chances. It's really only a large straight line over my eyebrows and the rest of the frame is transparent. I posed in even more extreme glasses for the brands. But also in quite a few rather dull frames. These glasses are extraordinary. I wonder if you ever saw them in the streets. Did you?"

"These glasses were made over thirty years ago by a company called Cazal. They never designed any middle of the road frames, almost exclusively extravagant frames. Not for the fainthearted, so to speak. I can't remember seeing this frame in the 1980's but last year there was an old lady sporting these glasses in a slightly different colour setting. Not bright blue but purple. It happened just around the corner of  Nel's place. The lady was well in her seventies and the lenses in her glasses were considerably stronger than the pair in your hands. It was an amazing sighting"

"Did you compliment the old lady with her glasses? Ladies, especially older ladies, are fond of well meant compliments. Or were you shy? You don't give me that impression"

"I can be quite outward and generous with compliments. The problem was that the lady in question was in a serious conversation with another woman and it would have been rude to interfere"

"Ah, I see. Thank you for the short lecture. Now shall we continue?"

"Please do. Mind you, the adaptation process may be slower than you might expect"

"Why is that? The lenses don't look strong at all"

"They have fairly strong cylinders. It means that the eyes of the first owner were almost perfect in the horizontal direction but rather shortsighted in the vertical direction. So your eyes will need to adapt in an irregular way, like a football that has to change into a rugby ball and back"

"That sounds serious. Can I do that safely?"

"Yes, you can. Many people have done it before you and there was never a real problem. It just takes a bit longer, like with the stronger glasses by Dior"

"Alright then". She put the glasses on and kept her eyes concentrated on her photographer.

"How is it going, Mia?"

"You are right, this is hard work but I'm getting there. Take a snap if you wish. We can compare it afterwards with the next portraits"

"Excellent idea" (snap)