YOU ASKED

Sorry, we don’t have one. But we do love dead-stocks and good stories.

Above all, we are a team of curious eyewear addicts. Born into a family with a passion for optics since 1934, we continuously research & develop our eyewear archive in order to offer fairly priced, quality deadstock frames to all conscious consumers in Brussels and beyond. Glasses are pretty universal, and in that spirit we seek to bring all sorts of interesting people together.

We dedicate our lives to chasing, checking, hacking and updating existing quality glasses worth preserving for future generations. We bring back to life the pairs we unearth while on digging trips by repairing, adapting, transforming and refreshing them in-store. This process provides the independence we need and allows us to bring you perfectly upcycled frames, at a fair price. They could be glasses from yesterday or decades ago. Age doesn’t matter. But quality and history do.

When not in the workshop, we hit the road as often as possible and head to the birthplace of the optic industry. With a lot of luck, a bit of boldness and the help of archives collected along the way, we wind our way through valleys and villages where millions of frames were produced. Think Privincia de Belluno in Italy or Haut-Jura in France. Once there, we obsessively search through cellars and attics, questioning locals and entering closed-down factories to unearth old stocks from frame designers and manufacturers, whether small family businesses or bigger names. 

When we don’t have the opportunity to go that far, we track down retired opticians wherever we are, so that we can browse through their back rooms and learn from the best. These trips indulge our endless curiosity, as we uncover new regions where manufacturers and sub-contractors meticulously crafted thousands and thousands of frames, hand-drawing and shaping every screw and every hinge. These people and their glasses are the ones we want to hunt down, and we hope to be doing exactly the same for years to come.

Even when we’re out hunting glasses and posting Instagram stories on the road, we always try our best to have someone to take care and welcome you at the store, each week from Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30am – 6.30pm.
For the latest, bestest, most up-to-date schedule, check it out on Google and Google Maps.

 

You bet. We offer comprehensive eye-examinations combining topnotch technology and the good old-fashioned way.  Schedule an eye-test or swing by the store and our optometrists will make sure to free up a slot for you. You’ll pay 20€ and get a 20€ voucher… so it’s kinda free. No?

Before your appointment, please take note : – Remove your contact lenses at least 3 hours before the test – If you have old glasses, eye test results or dusty prescriptions, bring them with you for analyse – If you know some good jokes, please rehearse before coming.

Since the early days of Bidules, we’ve tried to select our lens suppliers carefully, to fit with the kind of glasses we want to offer, both in quality and price.

We always say no to exclusivity contracts, keeping the freedom to make our own choices.

This means that we can work with more affordable stock lenses in most cases, instead of lenses that have been tailor-made unnecessarily.

But sometimes, one of you, or one of us, wanna be a little more specific. That’s fun too.

Depending on your prescription, the shape of the glasses you chose and their technical requirements, what you’ll want to wear them for and the size of your wallet, we’ll get your corrective lenses at Zeiss, Tokai
or Rodenstock.

We edge two different materials depending on the glasses we’re working on, either CR39 or Polycarbonate.

Recently we have installed a new double filter process that makes sure the water used during the lenses edging and finishing process is clean and free from particles.

The closed-circuit system allows water to be fed from a storage tank when in use during the day. This tank contains a filter drawer that performs the first filtration, retaining the largest cuttings while the smaller particles settle at the bottom of the tank. At night, the filtering cycle is run. Water passes alternately between the storage tank and the filtration tank to remove any suspended particles and clean the storage tank. Particles are then collected and stored in a filter bag.

Like you, we spend a good part of our lives exposed to the blue light coming from the many screens that surround us. Like this one. So we’ve made sure that your glasses, whatever era they come from, can be equipped with lenses specially treated against artificial light. Prices start at 40 € / pair.

Don’t panic! Each pair of glasses we sell comes with a guarantee against product fault for two years after your purchase. If you’ve had your frames longer, or if the damage was self-inflicted, remember that we love nothing more than salvaging frames.

Lost a screw? Sat on your favourite frames? Swing by the store whenever you want or get in touch, we’ll do our best to find a solution.

Honestly, we couldn’t tell you. There’s thousands upon thousands of frames in our stock. What you see in the store is only what we’ve been working on over the last few weeks, so we can demonstrate the scope of all of the eras, regions and creators that we’re fond of. Have a browse and let us know what you like (or don’t!) then we’ll come up with a sharp selection of frames that suit you best – those that match your needs and style.

There aren’t enough hours in a week to upload all the gems we have (and continue to add) to our inventory. Maybe in the future when robots are humans and humans are robots. Most importantly, though, this website could never replace the advice, fitting, adjustments, and care that we offer in store.

But if you couldn’t possibly wait any longer, there is a teeny tiny, very small reflection of Bidules in our GLASSES section

Let’s get right to it: our prices start at 105€ for glasses without lenses. The vast majority of our frames are priced between 100€ and 170€. Of course there are a few extra-rare frames that go for over 200€.

Our sunglasses always include Zeiss UV400 uncorrected lenses.

The price of prescription lenses varies depending on qualities like refraction index, treatments, and prescription complexity. Most clients can expect to pay between 48€ and 100€ for prescription sunglasses and 80€ and 180€ for optical lenses (tax incl.). These prices include an eye test, required measurements, cutting the lenses, and custom adjustments done by a trained specialist from our team.

Transparency is important to us, so we want to give some insight into our pricing logic. We don’t aim to be the cheapest option out there, our approach is based on being a little bit more expensive in price, but a lot more value in terms of quality and durability. It’s also important that we pay decent living wages to our staff and the community of artists, freelancers, and suppliers that we work with.

We know it’s not always simple, but we like to avoid one-size-fits all strategies at Bidules.

Nope! Because offering a fair price for high quality glasses is important to us no matter the season.

The vintage pieces in our shop don’t follow industry trends, and consequently we don’t have as much pressure with regards to stock and inventory management. So, our prices stay quite consistent 🙂

Visit us – we’re ready to help you find the pair of glasses that fits in your budget, anytime.

No, we don’t own a secret restaurant in the back room, sadly.

That smell is typical of high index organic lenses when we carve them on our edger. This lense material is so thick that the machine heats up and its intense chafing results in that lovely garlic smell. Mmm. 

We order and work on these kinds of lenses for glasses that require a more complex assembling process (nylon, rimless, …) or for heavy prescriptions. High index lenses are indeed the right option if you have a strong prescription, as they are thinner, lighter and allow us to avoid those bottle-bottom glasses.

99% of the time, the answer is no. When luxury brands started to license their name to manufacturers to put on frames, there was a significant drop in quality. Why? Because product value became less attached to intrinsic quality, and more attached to the immaterial value associated with brands, logos, and advertising. The names you’ll hear at the store won’t necessary ring a bell, but those manufacturers have produced high quality frames for generations. When we build the inventory for the store, we focus on periods and regions, cooperatives, traditions and techniques. It’s not all black and white, some big brands have made great glasses (we said some…). But one thing is sure, we never buy a brand for a brand!

Nope. Some of our glasses might have endured rough storage conditions, but they all come from old inventory and have remained untouched for decades.

Most of the frames that have already been worn show signs of close to irreversible wear and tear. It can be due to UV rays, skin oils and sweat, in some cases a bit of canine chewing or some other strange and unusual reasons.

For some materials and periods, making second-hand frames brand-new can be expensive and lead to unpredictable or underwhelming results… not to brag, but that’s not exactly how we see Bidules. Also working with deadstock in larger quantities allows us to better control the prices and to develop restoration and repair tricks specific to certains collections.

However, we do love seeing what you dug out of your own thrifting expeditions. You can always bring them in so our team can tell you whether they can be restored, improved, or turned into sunnies or prescriptions. What if you stumbled upon a great frame and there’s nothing to be done ? We’ll share some nifty tips we’ve acquired for you to keep it for as long as you can.

We’re pretty sure she kept them in a good state, but as above-stated, we don’t buy or sell second-hand frames. What we could do instead is change the lenses, bringing them back to life for you (or your grandma).

One thing in this life is sure: we have all kind of sizes, mostly because our glasses come from a period where glasses had sizes: bridge sizes, circle sizes, temple sizes, etc… Because we buy old stocks, we have easier access to all kind of special sizes, too (a.k.a. the unique ones that sold the least)/ Was it the most efficient or economical way of producing glasses? No, it was probably a nightmare at the industrial scale. But that’s what makes digging today so exciting for us. At Bidules, we’re happy to say we are specialized in sourcing frames that fit all sizes and sorts of people.

One size fits all? No way. Come by and let us “wow” you with all sizes you never knew you needed to see/try.

With this project we aim to reflect the diversity that characterizes our community, but also our selection of frames. So, we don’t select based on personal criteria or acquaintances. Glasses and people we love. Who knows, you could be next.

That’s a good one. Polarisation is a tricky subject to get into without diving really deep in the science-y stuff and we’re no science majors ourselves. So here’s a bit of vulgarisation.

Light can oscillate in waveforms that vibrate either in one or more angles, whether it’s waving vertically, horizontally or diagonally. The giant source that is the Sun emits lightwaves in all orientations. But when this light hits a flat object such as the ground, a puddle of water or the roof of a car, the waves reflecting off of it will mostly tend towards one same horizontal direction.

And that’s when pola lenses come into play.
Apart from blocking harmful UV rays and tinting your vision like a normal sun lens does, polarised lenses work as a filter that will only fully let in the vertical light rays, and gradually tone down and neutralise the remaining waveforms as they get more horizontal, thus completely cancelling out the harsh horizontal reflection.

On large bodies of water, on a ski slope or on the road for example, the strong beams of light we’re blinded by will specifically be neutralised, therefore making the surface relief easier to see (and even to see through for the fisherpeople out there). This reduction of glare can help your 10-hour road-trip captain see significantly more comfortably on a wet highway. It also allows better contrast and colour which is why it’s a go-to for outdoor sports.

Overall, polarised lenses are a great tool for lots of people. If you’re particularly sensitive to light, it might also be for you. They’re not the be-all end-all for average day-to-day sunnies, but we have to say, once you go there you’re kind of never going back.

And if you notice that your old LCD screens or tempered glass windows go a little funky with your pola lenses on, it’s because of polarisers overlapping and erm… look it up. Long story short: good news, it means they’re working. And you’ve got some psychedelics for your eyes – free of charge!

To give some technical terms, there are multiple types of UV rays emitted by the sun that pass through our ozone layer: the HEV light is within our visual spectrum of light between 400-780 nanometers, so we can actually see it. It’s the type of light that makes us squint when we turn on the light in a very dark room for example.
The most harmful UV rays are the ones we don’t see, as they stand below 400 nanometers. The UVB light lurks at around 280-320nm and sneaks up on us to give nasty peeling sunburns in best case scenarios, and in more serious situations, skin and eyelid cancer. UVA light, which stands between 320 and 400nm can pass through our retina, potentially causing some serious vision damage such as the development of cataracts and deteriorating eyesight. This is really no joke, and it’s why we play it extra safe and switch out all pre-existing lenses to new UV400 lenses, the highest protection there is (higher than the established standard by the EU) as they block out 99-100% of those ultraviolet rays standing below 400nm, both on our frames as well as on the ones you come with for us to restore.

With this in mind, UV protection works independently from the color of the lens and will always be UV400 no matter the shade or density. There’s different categories of darkness going from 0 to 4 to provide comfortable vision depending on brightness passing through (cat. 0 for 0-20% ; cat. 4 for 90-97%), the darkest mainly used for exceptionally bright environments (mountaineering, sailing etc.).
This means that even on the brightest of days, you can safely wear a set of cat.1 pale pink lenses, although you might be more comfortable wearing the standard and most used cat.3 lens.

Same goes for your opticals: at BIDULES they’re fully translucent but they also come with the same UV400 protection.

This way, rain or shine, those harmful rays are out of sight!

What about photochromic lenses? Do you have them? And polarized (see supra)? Ah, we don’t want to cause headaches with all of this mumbo jumbo. But yes, we’ve got you covered, pass by the shop and we’ll share all of the specs.