Lulu Guinness has launched her first eyewear collection for the UK at London's flagship Vision Express store. Emma White views the collection and meets the British designer
Fun and quirky handbags have distinguished Lulu Guinness and made her a much-loved star in the world of fashion and with celebrities. Since the pint-sized style-icon – once married into the Guinness family – launched her brand in 1989 her impressive collection has grown from perfume, make-up and baby wear to scarves, shoes and, most recently, eyewear.
Guinness opened her first accessories shop in London in 1999, closely followed by stores around the world including New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Her handbags are also on show in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The successful launch of her eyewear collection in the US about 18 months ago has prompted her to introduce her designs to the rest of the world.
The complete Lulu Guinness eyewear collection, under licence with Mondottica, is now being showcased at the flagship Vision Express on Oxford Street, London. Highlights from the range, which comprises 30 optical models and 16 sunglass models with three to six colour options, are available at over 200 Vision Express stores nationwide.
PUT ON YOUR PEARLS, GIRLS!
Guinness arrives for the launch at the flagship Vision Express store in a London taxi, especially spray-painted in Lulu branding.
Immaculately dressed in a rich purple dress with open toe shoes, styled hair, clean make-up and a slick of red lipstick, the designer embodies her glamorous brand. Lulu, her illustrated alter ego, created by artist Martin Welch, adorns pictures and cut-outs in the eye-catching shop-in-shop display, including an image of Lulu in London’s Piccadilly Circus.
The Lulu Guinness brand symbolises 1950s glamour when film stars like Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly set the trend for chic style and effortless grace.
Guinness’s book Put on your pearls, girls! captures the brand’s ethos and follows the Lulu character through her day as she advises girls on dressing up, shopping and entertaining in style.
Memorable lines include: ‘Powder your nose, and don’t forget your lipstick’; ‘Sometimes a well-dressed man is the best accessory’ and ‘Beauty comes from the heart, not from a jar’. 
Guinness’s penchant for taglines is apparent throughout her collections. Emblazoned across a girlish Lulu Guinness purse is the phrase: ‘Boys do make passes at girls who wear glasses.’ While phrases on her eyewear include: ‘Be a glamour girl’.
‘All my accessories and eyewear are part of the same signature,’ says Guinness, perched on a plush white chair in an upstairs area of the Vision Express store. ‘I’ve always had a vintage inspiration,’ she adds.
‘When I started out I looked through the archives from the 1950s and 1960s, before contact lenses, when people had to wear spectacles whether they liked it or not and women matched their spectacles with their accessories.’
Leading a ‘one-woman crusade’ to bring back evening spectacles was one of Guinness’s first ambitions.
‘The whole philosophy is seen in my book. Why keep all your evening clothes in the cupboard, why not wear them to the office?’ she says.
SPOTTING A NICHE IN EYEWEAR
After deciding that a niche existed in the eyewear market for ‘feminine frames that appeal to all ages’, Guinness set to work creating sunglasses first and moving on to optical frames.
‘The sunglasses did well in the US but the spectacles did phenomenally well,’ she says. ‘I really think there is a niche for feminine frames.
‘My bags and shoes are known for their decorative embellishment but what I love about eyewear is how fine the detail is and how tiny a change must be.’
Guinness has never been interested in creating clothes, preferring to focus on ‘things that you can put in your handbag, on your dressing table or shoes to match handbags’.
Working with a team of skilled designers and technicians, she ensures her ideas can work practically.
‘There are so many things you have to think about such as how a decoration can work around a hinge. It’s not like designing a handbag which is really just a large canvas,’ she points out.
Guinness says it is important for her to really think about how a frame will look on a person.
‘My designs have to look good on someone in my office as we have every face shape and every colouring,’ she says. ‘I’ll always include a black frame and tortoiseshell frame as well as one design to suit blondes and one for brunettes. These can be swapped around but this is how I think of it.’
FLIRTY FEMININE FRAMES
Her collection of flirty feminine frames are adorned with pearls, crystals and jewels and designed to ‘reflect the spirit of Lulu’.
The sunglass range includes her signature cat’s eye frame ‘Ingrid’, a spotted acetate in bold colours like ‘shocking pink’ and ‘gorgeous green’.
The rimless burgundy Carotta sunglass features a heart hinge, while the jewel-lined tortoiseshell ‘Debbie’ ‘adds a little sparkle wherever you go’. More precise details are displayed on the optical designs including a ruby-red acetate with a fine crystal pattern on lilac sides or a full-rimmed design in ‘light as a feather metal’ with jewels around the eyes ‘allowing an outfit to pass from day to nightwear’.
Many of the designer’s frames are characterised by a ‘swirly’ design, while others feature motifs from her handbags and other accessories including lips and ‘LG’.
‘I’ve always used the swirls on my designs – they are an extension of my swirly handwriting, which you can see in my book,’ she says in her sing-song voice.
‘Fashion should be fun, and style is for everyone,’ says Guinness as she prepares to return to her shop-in-shop where she will be providing three lucky winners of a Vision Express competition with a free consultation and frames glazed to their prescription.
‘Fashion really shouldn’t be taken too seriously,’ she adds, flashing a big smile. ‘It’s something that should make you feel good, one of life’s pleasures. Don’t you agree?’
The full collection is displayed at a shop-in-shop display at Vision Express, Oxford Street, for the next three months.