Just the two us | Banton Frameworks

Who are you? Who who, who who? 🎵

It blows my mind how many 'about us' pages don't mention names.

So first things first, Banton is run by just two people — co-founders and life partners Lucy Ross and yours truly Jamie Bartlett.

Together, we design and hand-make small batches of acetate glasses in our workshop. There’s no sales team, no investors, no marketing department, and no one else to pass decisions onto.

We're considering getting a workshop dog, because, well, dogs are just the best.

Unlike the big brands, you get your glasses from the hands that made them. Which is super rare.

 

Where are you based?

For 13 years, we previously worked in a shed at the bottom of Lucy's parent's garden. Wild, right? (Full story here.)

But now, our workshop is based in Glasgow, Scotland — a city shaped by industry, craft and people who know the value of doing things properly.

It’s not a showroom. It’s a working space. Raw materials arrive and finished frames leave. Unlike the big brands, we export instead of import. (That's also super rare.)

Frames are designed, cut, shaped, polished, adjusted and fitted with your prescription lenses. You hear machines humming. You smell hot acetate and fresh coffee. You feel the workmanship because build-quality is at the core of everything we do.

If you do try our frames, you'll know what I mean. That 'oooh' factor.

What we do

We make our glasses using high quality acetate and traditional frame-making methods.

That means each frame passes through hundreds of processes — many of them slow, repetitive and difficult to shortcut. Not because it sounds romantic, but because each stage accumulates towards a ridiculously good pair of glasses.

For example, there are 12 tiny rivets that are located one by one to attach the hinges. I love and hate those wee pins. They're small, fiddly and take ages to fit. But boy are they strong.

If you like solid glasses frames, you're in the right place.

 

How we do it

As a team of just two makers, we work in small batches and release our frames just six times a year.

This isn't a sales tactic.

As we learned the hard way, we actually have what's called a 'limited capacity' — running a small workshop and doing everything ourselves.

Small batches keep the scale manageable. It allows us to focus on care rather than volume, and attention rather than output. Being this small also means we can stay directly connected to the people who wear our glasses. Like Tim from Lancashire who's bought more than 15 pairs. Or Johnny from Shropshire who's bought a respectable 9 pairs so far.

"Bantonites" we call them.

Questions get answered by us. Adjustments are done by the same hands that shaped them. Relationships form naturally, because there’s no one between us the makers and you, the wearer.

A customer recently described us as "old fashioned" which I personally take as a compliment.

Why we work this way

Lucy and I started making frames in 2012.

Young, naïve and superbly underqualified, we believed that growth meant progress. More stockists. More production. More pressure. Over time, we started to resent our work, lost contact with our customers, and lost sight of why we started in the first place.

Make the best frames, not the most frames.

During the Covid19 pandemic, opticians closed. If we wanted our business to survive, we had to sell directly to our customers via our website. Just like how we started.

By making less, we cared more about the process and about the people choosing to wear them. Our work became quieter, steadier and more satisfying. It felt like ours again.

 

What this means for you

By now, you've hopefully realised we're not just another eyewear brand.

Due to the way we work, you won't find our frames anywhere else. Which also means we're not as convenient or as easy to access.

But the best restaurants are often found in quiet side streets. The best views are a little further up the mountain path. As a lover of whisky, I think patience and quality really do pay off.

If you choose to wear our glasses, you’re choosing something made with care, intention and love. They’re not mass-produced. They’re not rushed. They’re made to be worn, adjusted, repaired and lived with over time.

They won’t suit everyone — and that’s fine.

But if you value honesty, craft and a slower way of doing things, you’ll recognise it when you put them on. That’s what Banton Frameworks is about.

Thanks for reading.

Lucy & Jamie, the makers x