Key Styles

Ray-Ban

“Anti-Glare” doesn’t quite have the same ring. So after launching its teardrop-shaped shades, designed to protect the areas not covered by US Air Force pilots’ helmets and masks, to the general public in 1937, Bausch & Lomb wisely redubbed them “Ray-Ban” the following year.

It’s more famous as a sunglasses brand but many of its famous styles – including the Wayfarer, Clubmaster and Aviator – are also available as opticals, worn by everyone from Malcolm X to Seth Rogen. Today, Ray-Bans are as evocative as the Top Gun soundtrack, and as ageless as Tom Cruise in the sequel.

Key Styles

Cubitts

A direct-to-consumer brand, yes, but one that feels reassuringly expensive enough to be stocked at the discerning likes of Mr Porter and Liberty. Cubitts founder Tom Broughton made his first pair of frames at his kitchen table in London’s King’s Cross in 2013; the store there and in nearby Coal Drops Yard are two of its eight outposts across the capital, which offer eye tests for £25 if you buy frames, plus sunglasses (prescription and otherwise), transitions lenses, made-to-measure and bespoke.

NB speccing your specs is genuinely expensive: from £725, with a £200 premium for real buffalo horn.

Key Styles

Kirk Originals

Exactly a century ago, the Kirks were making clothes and buttons in London’s Clerkenwell when they had the vision to diversify. It wasn’t until the nineties though that the company, at one point in its 100-year history the largest spectacle frame maker in the capital, discovered a trunk full of fifties and sixties styles in its archive that informed its Originals range.

A hit on the vibrant club scene, the reissues adorned tastemaking magazines such as The Face and Arena, and music makers such as Oasis, Sir Mick Jagger, Paul Weller and Morrissey. The brand’s showroom has since relocated to Blackfriars.