Artist creates eyeglasses that bolt to the nose

Houston Chronicle ^ | February 23, 2005 | KRISTIN FINAN

[Dog Gone]

www.piercedglasses.com

"Freaky, yet cool," is the reaction James Sooy of Dallas gets when people realize his eyeglasses are attached to his face via body piercing.

Gross. Weird. Freaky.

James Sooy hears it all.

But when you stick a barbell through the bridge of your nose and screw prescription lenses to it, the 22-year-old Dallas artist admits, you come to expect some criticism.

Beauty is, after all, in the eyeglasses of the beholder.

"Since I've been wearing glasses so long, it was kind of odd," said Sooy, who created the "pierced glasses" that he now sports. "I'd reach up to take them off and I'd realize they were stuck on there."

After years fighting frames that seemed to always slip down his nose, Sooy got a bridge piercing — a relatively common piercing through the bridge of the nose. In December, he and his friend Oliver Gilroy affixed the prescription lenses to it.

Shortly after, Body Modification Ezine featured Sooy and the glasses, prompting a flurry of blog postings about whether this inanimate spawn of bad-boy barbells and sensible glasses could indicate a future trend.

"I can't imagine just having something stuck to my face like that," said 24-year-old Houston resident and blogger Thomas Campbell, who heard about the BME arti

HOW THEY WORK

• To make pierced glasses, James Sooy first got a bridge piercing and allowed it to heal completely.
• Then he got prescription lenses — also about $75 — and enlisted help to attach them to the piercing with special screws.
• The total cost was about $160.

cle from a friend and created a posting titled, "Pierced glasses? Freaky, yet cool."

"My friends commented that it was pretty strange that somebody would do that," Campbell said.

Sooy said he received 15,000 hits on his Web site the week after the article came out. Now he has created another site — www.piercedglasses.com — to promote the idea, which he hopes to market.

"I even had one eye doctor who said he was interested in helping us kind of work this thing out," Sooy said. "I would hope that anyone could go into a LensCrafters and pick out a pair if they wanted to."

Dr. Steven Garza, an optometrist at Memorial Eye, 9620 Westheimer, said that while it is easy to make various types and models of lenses, optometrists will likely have other concerns with Sooy's creation.

"If you have a hole in your face, it wouldn't be very easy to adjust," Garza said. "It's definitely interesting though. I would like to see that."

Some local piercers said that while they have seen requests for similar attachments — such as lenses that connect to eyebrow piercings — inquiries about pierced glasses have not been overwhelming.

Diane Iannucci, a piercer and co-owner of Sacred Heart Studio on Westheimer, said attaching lenses to new piercings could actually be dangerous.

"Piercings like that can take a year to heal," she said. "You wouldn't want to be hanging something off that."

Sooy said the original model, constructed without nose pads, did cause problems.

"Without those, there was really nothing keeping them still, so they would kind of rotate around," Sooy said. "If I looked down they would kind of fall out from my face and just kind of hang a little oddly. It was pretty disorienting."

Now Sooy said he leaves his nose-padded glasses on for weeks at a time and has received dozens of requests from people — including several in Houston — who want the same. He said he is working on a model that includes magnetic lens attachments to prevent painful snagging.

While he understands the shocked reactions to his piercing, he is hopeful people will be open-minded.

"It's more of a neat look than anything else," he said. "There's always other people to add upon our design, and they might come up with something even more outrageous."

[Psalm 73]

Ahhh, remember the "Opti-Grab" invented by Steve Martin in "The Jerk"?

[harbinger of doom]

Will he earn millions only to find people's eyes are being drawn to the center, thus crossing and blurring their vision? Then, will he lose everything, including his dog? Will his family and wife find him in an alley, homeless and miserable?

[VRWCmember]

My first thought upon seeing the headline was the Opti-grab.

[wolfpat]

Does he have some kind of valve packing in there so he can blow his nose without it coming out the pivot point?

[zarf]

"It's more of a neat look than anything else," he said. "There's always other people to add upon our design, and they might come up with something even more outrageous."

How bout contact lenses that are super glued to the eye itself?

[VRWCmember]

That's OK, I don't need anything else -- except this Thermos bottle.

[Bikers4Bush]

And this picture frame.

[wolfpat]

"I don't need anything....except this chair...."

[CzarNicky]

Uh no thanks.

[crv16]

Just imagine the reaction he'll have when his two year old nephew grabs his glasses and gives a good yank!

This whole tattoo/piercing thing is just getting out of hand.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Sheesh...if you want a neat look, have LASIK surgery.

[Drango]

Ohhhh yeah....what next? Bras that hook on to your nipple piercing?

[tiredoflaundry]

"OUCH" lol

[sneakers]

No thanks.

I think I'll pass.

[exnavychick]

Um...ouch!! I couldn't get these even if I wanted to have a hole in the bridge of my nose. I sleep on my stomach, and I can't even imagine trying to sleep with these things permanently affixed to my face. Removing them would leave a hole in my face, and I think that would be disconcerting to Mr. Ex, to say the least!

[Andy from Beaverton]

[SengirV]

I'm wait for the bolt thru my pelvis so I can keep my pants up without a belt.

[Fintan]

 

[Psalm 73]

"....what next? Bras that hook on to your nipple piercing?"

I bet you could make a million bucks hawking your bra/nipple-piercing product on DU............