Quick, name a brand of eyeglasses frames.

Emergency shopping is not likely to end well, I’ve learned, at least in terms of value. It’s even worse than shopping for groceries while hungry because in that case you can improve your odds by snarfing a handful of peanuts on the way in. But when your glasses go south, well, it’s hard to comparison shop when you can’t see.

So I went to one of the one-day glasses shops and picked a pair frames. I expressed the opinion that $170 for just the frames seemed a little steep to me, especially after I was told that the max lifespan of any set of frames is two to three years. The sales person told me, “You’re paying for the brand.” (Later I learned I actually paid over the suggested retail price for these frames.) As it happened, every frame in the place was a brand, and a fashion brand at that.

Admittedly, I have very little fashion sense, which explains my decision making process in choosing the ones I did: a) they looked like my old ones and b) they had springy hinges so the glasses stay on my head when I bend over. Plenty of the brands met those requirements, and they were all priced similarly.But I’m hard pressed to know why I should care what brand of eyeglasses frames I’m wearing. One brand lasts no longer than another, apparently, and they don’t look or seem unique in any other way. They’re made in China, like every other set of frames I’ve owned. (I’m tempted to send off for a $20 sample.) In honesty, I should point out that if you were close enough to chew my ear you might be able to read the brand name etched into the ear piece, but other than that, they’re just glasses.

Marketers can brand anything — from bananas to a bag of dirt, but whether that branding makes sense or sticks in the consumers mind usually calls for some evidence or expression of differentiation. In this case, I don’t know why I should feel especially reassured about a clothing designer making my glasses. I’d be more impressed if they came from, say Nissan or Craftsman, maybe John Deere, or Nikon or Canon.Now, if the sales person had explained to me that I was paying a premium for one-day service in my neighborhood by way of a markup on the frames, I would have found that easier to accept.