It is one of the most enduring childhood memories of a nurse from second-generation eyeglasses, Alexander “Alex” Feldman, huddled around the tub at Foster City House, bottling homemade lens cleaning formulas with her family. At the time, the enterprising immigrants from his parents, Russia, ran San Francisco Optics, an eyewear store on Chestnut Street, San Francisco, which has been around since 1979.
Today, Feldman runs “Alexander Dors.” “Alexander Darth” is a 15-year-old luxury eyewear and retail brand that grew from a family business he bought from his father. In January this year, he opened a store in Town & Country Village and acquired historic eyewear store Wilby Optical. Wilby has been in business since 1957 and has been an Alexander Dorse certified dealer since 2013. It has been rebranded as “Wilby Optical by Alexander Darth.”
This is Feldman’s fifth store. Others are in Los Angeles, Del Mar in San Diego, San Clemente in Orange County, and of course San Francisco.
What sets his brand apart is his almost nerd approach to crafts. “I make this eyewear line not from an art and design perspective, but from an eyeglassologist and knowledge of proper fit,” Feldman said in an interview with Weekly. Knowledge here means “daas” which comes from “da’at” means “daas” in the Kabbalah, an esoteric branch of Jewish mysticism, commonly referred to as the “tree of life.”
Though he was deeply interested in Vision health and vision science, Feldman resisted the kind of “cultural pressures” that commonly inherited as children of immigrant parents generally inherit, or at least to become optometrists. In fact, he changed his mind the morning of the optometry admission test.
“I woke up and thought, ‘I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to be an optometrist.’ I didn’t go,” he said. His father was upset, but he was clear. “My passion was to do business, business, frames, eyewear, marketing it, branding and doing eye examinations.” He majored in biopsychology.
But ultimately, his father understood his vision. He dreamed of growing the company into a much larger company. “I dreamed of launching my own eyewear line,” Feldman said. The brand Alexander Darth was born in 2010.
Apart from his own products, his store also has a large curation of other independent brands, mostly handmade boutique designs sourced from around the world. “We focus on highly curated eyewear selections,” Feldman said, highlighting his preference for small batch producers. Examples include Mykita and IC! Brands designed by the United States, such as Berlin in Germany, Lindbergh in Denmark, Theo in Belgium, and Blake Kwahara and Burton Pereira, manufactured in Japan.
Feldman takes pride in creating eyewear that is different from “mass-produced Prada and Gucci” and other brands “people perceived as high-end.” He spans what is called the art of “old-school optics” – near the end of the spectrum, with complex prescriptions and medical conditions, and modern fashion and brand marketing on the other side. “They are really two separate worlds,” he said. He attributes this advantage, particularly to what he calls “craft legacy.”
“I grew up with this. I learned and watched old school methods,” he said. “It wasn’t just for school… I turned off my first lens when I was 10.”
It was this early exposure to a culture of hard work that gave him the “grit” that later transformed his parents’ “immigration business” (literally a mom and pop store) into a gorgeous eyewear brand.
Alexander Darth’s Wilby Optical is 855 El Camino Real, Suite 103, Palo Alto
