Once Upon a Charm Unveils Beautiful New Eyewear Reimagining Glasses for Girls

The brand stands at the intersection of beauty, advocacy, and healthy vision blending charming frames with a deeper purpose: empowering children through earlier diagnosis and joyful self-expression.

Once Upon a Charm, a new children’s eyewear brand, is redefining how girls experience glasses, turning them from something they have to wear into something they treasure.

With softly detailed frames and a patent-pending system of charms that gently snap on the frame’s temples, the brand blends comfort, style, and imagination.

Each charm design is one of a kind, originally sketched by the company’s founder, Hayley Martin, and inspired by the wonder of girlhood. The designs are then molded and hand-painted with care, creating tiny, wearable works of art, as unique as the child who wears them.

The launch collection includes high-quality children’s eyeglass frames for girls between the ages of 4 and 10 and is priced at $250.

Each pair of glasses is packaged with a case and two sets of interchangeable charms to start the child’s collection. The company also offers prescription lens services, allowing families to submit their child’s prescription so the glasses arrive ready to wear straight out of the box.

But behind the whimsy lies a deeper mission: to raise awareness of the hidden crisis of undiagnosed vision conditions in children.

“As a toddler, my daughter was unusually cautious. She was nervous on stairs and unsure of herself in the physical world,” says Martin.

“When she was 4, a comprehensive eye exam revealed one eye was considerably stronger than the other and that she had challenges with depth perception, eye teaming, and tracking. We were fortunate that these issues were caught early.  With vision therapy, she gained the skills she needed to be successful at school before kindergarten even began.”

For many families, the clock is ticking.  And they don’t even know it. According to the American Optometric Association (AOA), 1 in 4 children has an undiagnosed vision problem (Keeping children’s vision in focus | AOA).

With 80% of learning in a child’s first 12 years coming through the eyes (It’s Our Mission to Understand Our Kids’ Vision), undiagnosed vision problems are fueling a silent epidemic in classrooms, despite being highly treatable when caught early.

Unfortunately, children with issues like poor tracking, eye teaming, convergence insufficiency, or visual discrimination are often misidentified as having ADHD, learning disorders, and/or behavioral challenges.  And, in many cases, they are simply struggling with their vision.

“Even children with 20/20 eyesight can have vision problems that significantly affect reading or learning,” says Martin.

“School vision screenings typically check for clarity, but not the full range of visual skills needed to succeed in school,” Martin says. The AOA reports that 75% of school screenings miss vision problems (Championing Children’s Eye Care | AOA). 

School vision screenings are not enough. As children return to school after the summer break, Martin urges every parent to “schedule a comprehensive pediatric eye exam, one that looks beyond eyesight and checks the full range of visual skills children need to thrive in the classroom.”

“Vision is more than just seeing clearly. It is about how the eyes move, focus, process
 and work together to understand the world,” explains Dr Katie Hash (OD, FOVDR and
 Once Upon a Charm Brand Ambassador). “Vision is how the eyes and the brain work together - and these skills are developed."

Dr Katie further explains that “when certain gaps cause a delay in reaching visual milestones, the outcome can be a cascade of larger vision issues, and ultimately an impact on a child's performance in school and sports. The key solution to this is early identification and intervention.”

But diagnosing a vision problem is only half the battle. For many children, the real challenge begins when it's time to wear their glasses.

“All too often, kids leave their glasses in their backpacks, or ‘forget’ to wear them, simply because they don’t like how they look or feel in them,” says Martin. “And who can blame them? So many of the frames we came across while choosing a frame for my daughter were barely scaled-down adult styles. They were too big, too bold, and too overwhelming for a child’s features.”

“Even after we found a pair my daughter loved, a few teasing comments at school left her feeling ashamed,” Martin recalls. “That moment broke my heart and sparked my mission to reimagine glasses so beautiful, even girls who don’t need them would wish they did.”

With Once Upon a Charm eyewear, safety was just as important as beauty.

“The European Union has more stringent standards than the U.S. for materials like phthalates, nickel, cadmium, and lead,” Martin explains. “We chose to meet those more rigorous guidelines because it mattered deeply to me that our products be not only beautiful, but exceptionally safe, something I’d feel confident putting on my own child.”

Once Upon a Charm was born with a dual mission: to make glasses girls love, and want, to wear, and to help other families uncover vision challenges before they become barriers to learning. 

To learn more about Hayley Martin or Once Upon a Charm, or to schedule an interview, please contact her at hello@onceuponacharmeyewear.com.

Visit OnceUponaCharmEyewear.com for more information and vision health resources.