Shared Vision

Optician Philippe Rochette believes everyone has a right to see clearly, no matter their means

- Andrea Bennett

IN THE LOW-CEILINGED lobby of YMCA Guy-Favreau in downtown Montreal, two women are trying on eyeglasses. One holds up a square mirror, tilts her face from side to side, then shakes her head: not quite right. She moves on to the frames her neighbour has just put down.

Optician Philippe Rochette, better known by his alias, Bonhomme à lunettes, triages the crowd. Who’s here to pick up glasses? Who’s here for repairs? To find a new pair? Switching between French and English, with a bit of Spanish thrown in, the gregarious 42-yearold negotiates a deposit with a senior whose glasses have been stolen—how much can he afford?— and reassures a waiting woman that she hasn’t been forgotten.

Rochette fell into a career as an optician by accident, he says—he needed to support himself while studying creative writing and cinema at the Université du Quebec à Montréal. After completing an optical training program and spending several years selling high-end designer frames—“Plated gold, 23.6 karat; I did all of that”—Rochette was fed up with how the cost of glasses was tied less to function and more to fashion.