Staff at Vision Express in Swansea’s busy Quadrant Centre have chalked up a remarkable 114 years at the store.
Leading the way at the sparkling new shop which has just had a major refit is manager Gill Thomas who joined the company 19 years ago along with assistant lab manager Brian Mainwaring.
She said: “It’s a great place to work and now the store is beautiful too. It’s had a complete makeover and it looks great and it’s making a difference – our footfall is definitely up since the makeover.
“The Quadrant is a busy place but we seem even busier since the refit and we’ve got a fantastic selection of frames and new lines, the best in the area.
“The customers are nice here as well. Swansea is a very friendly place and we have lots of regulars and we’re very well-situated here right at the heart of the city and right by the bus station and Swansea Market.”
Quadrant Shopping Centre Manager Alan Wallace said: “It’s great to see the new-look Vision Express which has had a real facelift.
“It’s very positive for the Centre to have major retailers like Vision Express showing such confidence in Swansea and it is very positive for the staff there who do an excellent job.”
Vision Express employ 14 people at the Quadrant Centre store which has three floors and as well as Gill and Brian long servers include Gill’s deputy, Diane Hawes, who has been there for 17 years and optician Linda Lewis, 16 years.
Gill said that fashions in eyewear had certainly changed since she began work at Vision Express: “Then it was the Deirdre Barlow look that was in with huge frames – they probably weren’t the best for prescriptions but that was the fashion then.
“In the last ten years it has gone more European in style and frames are smaller and neater and look much better with different colours and big names like Armani, Jimmy Choo and Gucci designing frames.
“They are much more attractive and your glasses are much more of a fashion statement now rather than something to be hidden away – it’s much more exciting now.
“People buy more glasses now. We started the two-for-one deals but nowadays you might have four or five pairs for different occasions, even a pair to be left upstairs.
“After all you wouldn’t wear the same pair of shoes for two years so why would you wear the same pair of glasses?
“There have been so many changes with the range of sunglasses we now carry, including prescription sunglasses, and people like them to be stylish as well as functional.
“Even contact lenses have changed. When I started everyone had hard or gas permeable lenses but now the majority are the soft and disposable lenses and we’ve even got the coloured lenses.”
