A COLOUR blind upholsterer from Dawlish is seeing the world in a whole new light thanks to a revolutionary new set of glasses.

Brad Leiper, who owns and runs SW Sewing in Starcross, had for many years struggled in his job working with a range of coloured fabrics and thread, finding it frustrating to tell certain colours apart.

Being colour blind, he only sees about 10 per cent of the more than one million hues and shades of colour people with normal colour vision see.

‘With my colour blindness what I see is dull and less vibrant, with some colours appearing muddled and muted,’ said Brad.

‘It was sometimes challenging if I was working on my own and would have to get someone in from next door to tell me which colour was which!’

However, thanks to some special specs from a company created by a company called EnChroma Brad can now finally see the vibrant colours of all the thread and fabric he is working with.

The glasses work thanks to special optical filters that enhance the clarity, vibrancy, range of colours as well as detail and depth perception for the colour blind. The company does point out the glasses are not a cure for colour blindness but does help in some cases.

‘I was a bit sceptical at first thinking that it was going to be too good to be true,’ continued Brad.

‘But I remember driving home with them on for the first time and seeing a red letter box I’d passed numerous times and was absolutely gobsmacked at how vibrant it actually was.’

Even the colours Brad did not struggle with as much feel different to what he had been used to experiencing, and he feels like he will now need to re-learn colour perception.

‘It’s been strange to think what I’ve been missing out on,’ he added.

‘We had a cream sofa in the house or years and when it came to getting rid of it my wife told me it was green! She also told me Shrek was green... I thought for years he was yellow.’You can watch Brad’s reaction to seeing colours for the first time here https://youtu.be/DQMYTgLtObM