Profile: Alex Jaffray

Glasses can be used as accessories to compensate for a certain kind of shyness. Just as humour can be a defence when you’re a bit shy (like me growing up). Glasses are great for directing attention away from what we want to hide… Elton John and Michel Polnareff knew exactly what they were doing! They’ve thrown their weight behind glasses and made them their trademark.

I was in my late teens. I think I should have started earlier, but back in the 80s, problems you’re your vision were less likely to be picked up as quickly…

My first pair of glasses came from an opticians at the Gare de l’Est. I’ll never forget it; whenever I’m passing through the area, it takes me back. There was a garden opposite the opticians and on the way out, I could see the detail of the leaves, the plants and the trees. I thought to myself, I must have missed out on a lot of cool stuff. In fact, it turned out that the people I thought were good looking were actually just blurry!

I’m wearing a pair by Götti, a Swiss brand that I love and is a nod to my father, who spent a long time living in Switzerland. It’s a sort of OCD of mine. I have a Curaprox toothbrush, which is another Swiss brand, that’s worth a fortune. It doesn’t brush any better, but it’s fun!

Alain Mikli, who it was really nice to meet. He loved my segment on Télématin and asked his press officer to set up a meeting. We hit it off straight away and he made the frames that I wore for a long time. It’s thanks to him that I realised that glasses could be subtle.

There are lots of bearded men with glasses in my line of work. On a subconscious level, maybe I want to acknowledge that, but I wouldn’t want my glasses to overshadow my personality.

I’ve only lost them once, which was during the World Cup in 1998. I got incredibly drunk and nearly ended up in an alcoholic coma. When I woke up, my glasses were missing. The morning after is still a rather painful aspirin-laced memory!

I wear my glasses all the time, apart from every so often when I’m working in the music studio. I like to take them off to help me concentrate on the sound. Maybe wearing glasses later, when I actually needed them sooner, meant that I developed a special relationship with sound. I appreciate that connection when I’m working on my music.

Classic Ray-Bans with prescription lenses.

I had black rectangular glasses like Jacques Chirac’s at the same time as him… I let myself be influenced by the optician’s spiel and whoever I was with. I was just out of the army, so had a buzz cut. Combined with these glasses, it was an absolute disaster! As soon as I got home, I realised my mistake, like when you go clothes shopping and come out with trousers that really don’t suit you, but bought because the sales assistant talked you into it.

The dream would be to have some real collector’s glasses. I enjoy buying cult objects, like the replica hoverboard from the film “Back to the Future”.

I’d like to be a pair of X-ray specs that see through clothes. It’s an old fantasy from 70s comics.

All the musicians who wear glasses: Elton John, of course, as well as John Lennon, Ray Charles, Polnareff, Stevie Wonder…

I’m on the Télématin breakfast television show on France 2, but even more importantly I’ve written a musical stand-up show called “Le Son d’Alex”, am on stage in Paris every Wednesday and Thursday and touring soon in Nantes, Aix… I’ve just spent three months at La Nouvelle Seine supporting Blanche Gardin and for the next three months, I’ll be at the Comédie République on Boulevard Saint Martin in Paris!