Pieter Steyn wore glasses at seven. Now he makes his own frames

Pieter Steyn has worn glasses since he was seven. Even after he trained as an optometrist, choosing frames still felt like a compromise. He told Eyestylist in 2012 that he had always found it "quite daunting that you have to compromise on your own personal aesthetic" in a traditional eyewear shop.

So he built the opposite. Visi reported in May 2011 that a new boutique called The Oculus had opened in De Waterkant under Steyn, billed as couture eyewear. It stocked Tom Ford, Cartier, Persol and Mykita, and offered bespoke frames through Tom Davies. By 2016 the shop had moved to a larger showroom in The Mirage, on the corner of Strand and Chiappini Streets, where it still is. Steyn holds a postgraduate degree in Advanced Ocular Diagnostics, and The Oculus was his first practice.

What an eye test involves

The clinical side is not an afterthought. Examinations use NIDEK instruments. One maps how light is bent across the cornea, lens and pupil. Another does the refraction digitally, using that map. A third, an OCT scanner, takes cross-sections of the retina and optic nerve, which can show early glaucoma, macular changes and diabetic retinopathy. Results are stored digitally, so next year's test can be set beside this year's.

Frame fitting starts with a 3D scan of your face. Pupillary distance, temple length and bridge angle are taken from the scan, and a frame can be shown on the 3D model before anything is cut. Booking ahead is recommended, and a second showroom, PlettOculus, serves Plettenberg Bay from The Lookout Centre on Main Street.

The shop's own frames

The shop stocks more than a dozen independent makers, among them Mykita in Berlin, Matsuda in Tokyo, Theo in Antwerp, Lucas de Stael in Paris and Rolf in the Austrian Tyrol. Then there is Zero21, which is not bought in at all.

The name is Cape Town's 021 dialling code. Each model is named after a street, suburb or landmark: Adderley, Bree, Kloof, Long, Whale, Higgovale, Roeland, Ocean View. The city is the catalogue, and the streets are the line.

The frames are made at The Studio in Paarden Eiland, where frame designer Etan Croukamp and Raphael Bornman work, and where Steyn drives across from De Waterkant when a complicated job needs him. Each frame is sculpted from a solid block of Italian acetate. The frame shape, lens groove and hinge pockets are machined as one job, rather than assembled from bought-in parts. The steps are sculpt, shape and finish, and the process takes days.

There are four ways a front can be cut. Bevelicious has two angled planes and uses acetate barrel hinges, so no hardware shows. Classic Zero21 is a single curved surface with metal barrel hinges and visible screws. Rivages has four or five horizontal channels machined across the front, like layers in rock, the hardest of the four to machine cleanly. Convexus bows outward in one arc. The acetate comes in a library of 72 named colours, from Smokey Brown to Shocking Pink. A prescription pair takes two to three weeks.

Commissions and collaborations

The Studio also takes bespoke commissions, small runs and collaborations. In 2024 it made two frames with designer Kat von Duinen under the name Midlife Crisis: MC1, a sand-cast acetate aviator with a riveted metal bridge, and MC2, a black square cut as a single flat-topped slab. The brief was presence rather than optics.

The Oculus is at Showroom 6, The Mirage, De Waterkant, open Monday to Saturday. Book an eye test at oculus.bookem.co.za or phone 021 421 0023.