Spring has sprung! It's time for Oracular Beauties...

These days I don’t know many people who have a career path – one career for their whole lives – except for my parents: my Dad has always been a lecturer in Maths, my Mum has always been a teacher. Our generation is different. Many of the people I went to university with are now on their second or even third career path: banker to teacher, solicitor to nurse, VM Manager to business owner (that’s me!) Lindsay of Lunettes London is another example,

“I studied English at uni then worked for Armani instore. I saw how the brand was honed through the stock purchased and thought buying was the right route for me.”

Buying is a notoriously hard professional nut to crack and with whole categories and brand successes lying on the line of a couple of ordered ranges, the stress is magnificent,

“I landed a buying job in London and managed to stay for two years. It got too much – the stress, the hours - so around the time my friend bought an opticians, I quit my job and started indulging my passion – eyewear.”

Lunettes London sell the kind of glasses you can spend all summer searching for on the high street and never finding. They are the kind of glasses you see a really cool girl wearing at a festival and in the blink of an eye she is gone before you can even begin to open your mouth to ask her where she picked her oracular beauties from. I found them on a shopping trip with a client in Manchester in Curiouser and Curiouser, picked up Lindsay’s business card and started stalking her straight away.

Initially conceived in the form of Frockstar, re-branding under ‘Lunettes London’ made the appeal unisex and Lindsay, self-confessed eyewear addict, has now been in business for two years. Her eyewear is retro vintage and the occasional cool designer pair which she has sourced herself or has been sourced by her friend who is an optician. Handy, that.

Lunettes London has grown from a stall 1 day per month on Portabello market to a fully-fledged business complete with an online boutique, several stockists in Manchester and London and an online presence not to be sniffed at. Lindsay is “obsessive” and her long term plan is to design and produce her own range of eyewear. Currently working at her friend’s opticians one day a week learning about lenses and glasses, I think her long term plan will come to fruition very soon indeed.