SoHo Independent Eyewear Boutique Walk: Wooster to Mercer

Selima Optique's SoHo flagship at 59 Wooster Street lists Monday–Saturday 11:00am-7:00pm and Sunday 12:00pm-6:00pm, so a late weekend start still leaves a full afternoon for frames. Two blocks east, Cutler and Gross keeps its New York store at 71 Mercer Street, between Spring and Broome. That pairing makes SoHo the most efficient place in Manhattan to compare two independent eyewear boutique traditions on foot: a New York designer's own house line and a London maker known for handmade acetate.

Selima Salaun is a licensed optician who studied in Paris, worked at Royal Optique and later managed the Alain Mikli boutique in New York before launching her own label. Her Wooster Street shop opened in 1993, when the surrounding loft buildings were still dominated by galleries rather than fashion chains, and it remains the brand's flagship.

The house style leans toward strong colour and confident brow lines, so this is the stop for anyone who wants a frame that reads as a deliberate accessory. If you have only ever worn thin metal or black rectangles, give yourself ten minutes with one bright frame before you rule it out. Faces adjust to colour faster than people expect, and a clear or pale frame often looks lighter than a dark one in the same shape.

Cutler and Gross began in London in 1969, and in 2024 it moved its New York shop from 110 Mercer Street to a larger 2,400-square-foot space at 71 Mercer. The building dates from the 1920s and was redesigned for the brand by the architects Chris and Dominic Leong, so the room itself is worth a look even if you leave without frames.

Where the Wooster stop is about colour, this one is about proportion and material. Pick up two acetate frames in similar shapes and compare the thickness of the front, the shape of the bevel and the weight in your hand. Thicker acetate makes a bolder statement but also carries more weight on the nose, which matters if you will wear the frame for ten hours a day at a desk.

Before you start trying frames, write down three numbers from the inside of the temple on the pair you wear now: lens width, bridge width and temple length. Those figures give both opticians a fast reference point, and they let you compare a Selima frame and a Cutler and Gross frame on equal terms instead of judging only by how each one looks in a flattering mirror.

Once a frame is on, check three things. Your eyes should sit near the centre of each lens, the frame should not touch your cheeks when you smile, and the temples should rest above your ears without pressing. A frame that fails one test can sometimes be adjusted. A frame that fails all three is the wrong size, however much you like the colour.

Bring a current written prescription. If you have a strong correction, ask how thick the lens edge will be in the frame you like, because a large lens with a high minus prescription can look very different once it is cut and fitted.

The frame is only half the order. Ask which lens materials the shop can fit into the frame you chose, whether anti-reflective coating is included or extra, and how long the lab will take. Thin high-index lenses suit strong prescriptions but cost more, while a standard lens may be perfectly fine for a mild correction in a small frame.

Also ask what happens after pick-up. Find out whether adjustments are free for the life of the frame, how repairs to hinges are handled and whether the shop can replace lenses later if your prescription changes. A boutique purchase is meant to last several years, so the aftercare policy is part of what you are paying for.

Be honest about budget before you walk in. Both shops sell premium designer frames with prescription lenses priced on top, so SoHo is a poor first stop if you are replacing glasses on a tight budget or want a basic pair in a hurry. In that case, start with your vision plan's in-network list and come back to SoHo for the pair you want to keep for years.

Weekends also bring heavy foot traffic along Prince and Spring. If you want a slow fitting with time for questions, a weekday morning gives the opticians more room to pull frames from drawers and talk through lens options without a queue forming at the mirror.

SoHo's cast-iron architecture gives a two-stop afternoon its shape. The Haughwout Building at Broadway and Broome, completed in 1857, is one of the best-known cast-iron facades in the city and sits a short walk from both shops. Greene Street, one block over from Wooster, has some of the longest unbroken runs of cast-iron fronts in the district, and walking it slowly is a good way to let a frame decision settle.

If one shape keeps coming back to mind, return to that shop before you leave the neighbourhood rather than ordering on the spot at the first counter. Comparing your two favourites side by side, half an hour apart, is the most reliable way to avoid a frame that only looked right under one set of lights.

Selima Optique SoHo is at 59 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10012, listed Monday–Saturday 11:00am-7:00pm and Sunday 12:00pm-6:00pm. Cutler and Gross New York is at 71 Mercer Street, between Spring and Broome. The Prince Street station on the R and W lines and Spring Street on the 6 and the C and E are all within a few minutes on foot.

Plan for at least ninety minutes if you intend to try frames seriously in both shops. If you need an eye exam first, sort it out before the SoHo trip so you arrive with a current prescription. The Karpo APP can help you turn that into a route: share the shapes and colours you are considering and how much time you have, and use the plan it suggests to decide which shop to visit first.