“We bring in the big city name eyewear to the prairies. I like to say we are the Paris of the Prairies, with our eyewear.”
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the StarPhoenix talks to Bobbi Little, who opened SPEX by Ryan with Ryan Horne in Saskatoon and relocated to a nearby new location within Riversdale last year.
SPEX by Ryan brings some of the latest eyewear trends to Saskatoon. They complete their own handiwork and repairs on site and offer glasses and sunglasses options that are not readily available in Saskatchewan.
Q: What is SPEX by Ryan?
A: SPEX By Ryan challenges conventional thoughts on what an eyewear store should be. Our eyewear selection is an eclectic blend of the world’s latest trends and remarkable materials. We do glasses and sunglasses, prescription and non-prescription. Ninety-nine per cent of what we’re known for is in glasses and sunglasses.
Q: Why did you open SPEX by Ryan?
A: Ryan Horne has had a Regina SPEX by Ryan store for going on 10 years. He has clientele that come from all kinds of surrounding communities. A lot from Saskatoon and even rural communities are driving to Regina to get their glasses through him. He did a couple of pop-ups, tested the waters in Saskatoon and had great response. He decided it was time to open another location in Saskatoon.
I had worked for optometrists for the last 25 or 30 years. Ryan’s time was limited to be able to be in Saskatoon. He was waiting to find the right person, knowing that he couldn’t be here all the time. We met through a mutual friend. After conversations about what we both wanted to bring to the store and how to represent it, we felt we both aligned. So I co-own the store with Ryan. We both have the same goals and ideas for what we want the business to be.
Q: What makes you stand out from other eyewear companies?
A: We bring in the big city name eyewear to the prairies. I like to say we are the Paris of the Prairies, with our eyewear. Optometrists are a little more handcuffed because they have such a huge demographic of fitting people from two to 102. Maybe they’re a little more hesitant to bring in unique and niche quality high-end eyewear that you can’t really get anywhere else.
We like to push boundaries. We say we don’t follow trends. We like to let people be their own person. If you walk into an optometrist office you have row on row of rectangular glasses that are just different colors. Whereas we’re bringing in all different styles and shapes.
Even with our lenses we like to push the limits a little bit and do a lot of indoor tints or bringing back the gradient tints and stuff that people maybe see in Paris on the runway. That fashion, it seems like it takes at least two years to kind of get to us. You see it in Europe and then it maybe trickles down to the U.S. and then finally to us. Whereas we bring it in a lot quicker and sooner.
Q: Do you have some eyewear lines that stand out?A: Saskatoon is a little bit more of an artsy city. When we introduced colour, people have just loved it.
We have one line from Brighton in England. We call it our Jolly Rancher line. It has been one of our best lines since we opened. Even to the point where the owner and designer, Jason Kirk, was making a tour in Canada and he came for our grand opening and then spent the day with us. It was really nice just to have that representation and people got to meet the actual designer of the company.
Just little things like that, that sometimes you don’t get from your optometrist’s office. People love to have that kind of connection.
Q: Are your glasses handmade?
A: At SPEX by Ryan, everything is handmade. And when I say handmade, it’s right down to the soldering and hand polishing. A lot of our lines can take up to two years to produce.
We have one company out of Los Angeles where it can take up to 18 months just to manufacture one frame, because of the steps and the process that it goes through. They don’t believe in mass production. Almost all of their lines are limited to from 100 frames worldwide up to maybe 550.When they produce it and when they release it, everyone is trying to gobble it up and get their hands on it. A lot of people like that because it’s a collector’s item. Those little things set us apart from the mainstream mass-produced eyewear that you can get kind of on every street corner.
Q: Do you provide eye exams?
A: We don’t have an optometrist on site in Saskatoon, but people can just bring in a prescription. We order in the lenses here and then we add everything on site. One thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that they can take their prescription with them. You just have to ask your optometrist if you can have a copy of your prescription. It’s your choice if you want to go look around.
Q: When did you open originally?
A: We opened the doors March 3, 2020 and closed March 13, due to COVID. So not the best timing. We were closed for about three months and because we were so new, we didn’t qualify for any government grants, but we were one of the first ones that got to reopen. It was great because Ryan did have enough of a clientele from Saskatoon that kind of knew the name SPEX by Ryan. So we had some people here already that would help spread the word and support us.
Q: Why did you move to a new location?
A: In April last year, this space became available. We are right on the corner of Avenue D and 20th Street, with a lot more visibility. Our brand colour is orange and we wanted to paint the building and they said ‘As long as it’s not orange.’ We persevered and we won. We got to paint the building and added a great big huge canopy.
There is just so much more visibility here and people that didn’t even know we were here now see us in a big, bright orange building. After three years in our first location, we decided to move a block and a half, which seems crazy to most people, but we did. We were very limited in the original building to be able to make it unique and our own. It’s been good to add our own flair to the new building.
Q: What is your background in eyewear?
A: Ryan and I together have about 55 to 60 years in the industry. Being able to bounce questions off each other all the time is great. There are not too many times that you can come up with a circumstance that we don’t know how to deal with it. If customers have an issue, we have a lot of years of combined knowledge to bounce off each other to solve any problem.
Q: What do you love most about operating SPEX by Ryan?
A: I love bringing unique eyewear to Saskatoon. It reinvigorated my passion for the industry. But equally important is getting to know our clients.
When I used to work for an optometrist office, you have maybe 15 or 20 minutes to spend with that patient or client because you know that next person is coming. Whereas here, it’s nothing to spend an hour with a client helping them choose their eyewear. In that time we really get to know them and become friends. Our clients really do become like family. That’s a tribute to the relationships that we build here.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
SPEX by Ryan
Owners: Ryan Horne & Bobbi Little
Address: 343 – 20th Street West
Hours: Weekdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday closed.
Phone: 306-665-7739
Email: yxe@spexbyran.com
Website: www.spexbyryan.com
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