An optician’s shop that draws its own frames
Clearline Optical designs frames in Brooklyn, cuts them from Italian acetate and Japanese titanium, and fits the lenses in its own lab.
We opened in 2014 as a two-chair optician on Union Street. For four years we fitted frames made by other people and kept a notebook of what went wrong - bridges cut for one nose shape, temples that stopped short of the ear, a single size sold to everyone. By 2018 the notebook had become a set of drawings, and the drawings became the first six Clearline frames.
Every frame we make is drawn in the studio upstairs and cut in three widths. The acetate comes from a family mill near Milan and is tumbled for three days so the edges are soft; the titanium is pressed in Sabae, Japan, where most of the world’s good metal frames are made. Hinges are five-barrel and the screws are standard sizes, so any optician can repair them.
Downstairs is the lab: two edgers, a surfacing line and four opticians who check every prescription twice before it ships. It is why we can include single vision lenses in the price of a frame, and why we will remake a pair at no charge if your prescription changes within the first six months.
- Opened on Union Street
- 2014Opened on Union Street
- Widths of every frame
- 3Widths of every frame
- Business days, lab to door
- 10Business days, lab to door
A short history
2014
Two chairs on Union Street
Clearline opens as an independent optician in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
2018
The first six frames
Harlow, Bergen and four others are drawn in the studio and cut in Italian acetate.
2021
Our own lab
Surfacing and edging move in-house, ten blocks from every Brooklyn customer.
2025
Home try-on
Five frames, five days, posted anywhere in the continental US at no charge.
What we hold to
Lenses included
Single vision lenses with anti-glare and scratch coating come with every optical frame.
Measured in millimetres
Lens, bridge and temple sizes on every frame, in three widths, so you can match the pair you own.
Two-year frame warranty
Hinges, screws, nose pads and adjustments are free for as long as the warranty runs.
What customers say
“I have a narrow face and a strong prescription, and this is the first time a pair has arrived that sits level without a trip back to the shop.”
“The try-on box came with a ruler printed on the lid. I measured my old pair, matched it to the Medium, and got it right first time.”
“They adjusted my son’s Pips three times in a year and never charged. The frames have survived a playground and a dog.”
New frames, first
One email a month: new shapes before they go on sale, care advice from our opticians, and when the studio is open for walk-in fittings.