Established by optician Russell Scher FADO MFDO in 1999, Iris Optical began life in September 1999 as Iris Online Contact Lens Centre. Contact lens customers began asking whether we could supply spectacles, and so in May 2001 Iris Spectacles was launched.
Shortly afterwards our contact lens and spectacles businesses were merged under the Iris Optical name, and one year later the company premises by London's Tower Bridge was opened to the public and the first Iris store was born.
A second store, in Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, followed in September 2005 and housed our first sunglass collection as well as a similar range of spectacles to that found in Iris Tower Bridge.