It wasn’t until US actor Sarah Michelle Gellar was aged 19 and filming on the set of Buffy that she realised she needed glasses. These days she is a proud spectacle wearer, and during 2014, the ambassador and a judge of Specsaver’s annual Spectacle Wearer of the Year competition. mivision’s Todd Tai caught up with Ms. Geller in Sydney recently and asked her what’s next.
Sarah Michelle Gellar remembers the day she got glasses as one that changed her life. An optometrist working on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (… all those vampires need contacts to give them that other-worldly look) noticed her constant squinting.
“As a 19-year-old, living on pay cheque to pay cheque without health insurance, I told him I hadn’t had my eyes checked. He checked them for me and said I was blind as a bat and that I needed glasses.
“I realised that’s why I couldn’t see the words on the pages… Then I got my first pair of glasses and I have been wearing glasses ever since.”
Ms. Gellar was in Sydney for the launch of the Specsavers’ 2014 Spectacle Wearer of the Year competition, at a dazzling event on Sydney’s harbour foreshore. The winners will be announced next month (January).
Also at the launch, Alex Perry – the Australian face of the brand. He said
the competition is an opportunity for Specsavers’ customers to express themselves and their individuality.
He said the choices available for people today are vastly different from those available when he was a child.
“When I was a kid I remember… I had a patch over one eye because I couldn’t see properly, and I had to wear glasses. There were basically two frames you could pick – an ugly one or an uglier one. So the last thing you would have thought about wearing glasses was that it was an expression of your personal style, an expression of your happiness… in fact you were segregated.”
Ms. Gellar said it was the idea of encouraging people to feel more confident about expressing their individuality that was one of the reasons she was attracted to the Specsavers brand – and the idea of judging the Spectacle Wearer of the Year competition.
“I love the idea of feeling comfortable in your glasses… eyes are the windows to your soul and glasses are the magnification of that,” she told mivision.
“As an actress and a glasses wearer myself, I know how important it is to have confidence in your style and to love your frames. I like to look at glasses as an extension of individual style, a way to express a part of your personality that you can have fun with.”
Encouraging Individuality
As a member of 2014 competition judging panel, Ms. Gellar said she will be looking for “someone who rocks a style… someone who is confident in their own body”.
She spoke about the success that self-confidence brings. “If you want other people to have confidence in you, you have to have confidence in yourself.” She said glasses, as an extension of a person’s personality and style, allow their “true self to show”.
And her own favourite frames? “Right now I love my Alex Perrys, but I also love the Nude Country Road frame.”
Future Opportunities
Acknowledging the vast choice of frames available today, which she said “has definitely improved, even from when I first began wearing glasses on set”, the US acting star hinted there could be room for more. So would she consider designing her own collection?
“Now that would be fun… I could definitely do a kids’ line, no question about that,” Ms. Gellar said, her eyes lighting up with enthusiasm.
“You see kids looking at glasses for the first time and they don’t want to wear them… but when they try them on, when they see the variety, and have the chance to find a frame that expresses their personality, they find out that glasses can be fun.
“My designs would be all about the detail on the temples… that’s what makes them unique… that’s what speaks to people as individuals.”
The Specsavers 2014 Spectacle Wearer of the year will be announced in January 2015.
