Optical royalty met in central London last night as Specsavers rolled out the green carpet for the annual Spectacle Wearer of the Year Awards.
The glamourous bash was launched by former Girls Aloud member Nadine Coyle, while This Morning’s Rylan Clark-Neal returned to host the event for a second year.
Choosing from a list of 15,000 entrants, eight category winners were named before the show, all of whom were then invited to attend the final for a chance to win £10,000 and a £1,000 eyecare voucher.
Bake Off matriarch Prue Leith was presented with the Services to Specs award, while Good Morning Britain’s Richard Arnold received the Best Specs Newcomer gong. Former Steps singer Claire Richards took home the hotly contested Specs Appeal Award.
Last night also saw the introduction of a new accolade, the Dame Mary Perkins Award for professionalism and expertise, which was claimed by Specsavers Lanark and Rubena Kerr after her vigilance helped to detect a life-threatening brain tumour in a patient.
The Specsavers co-founder Dame Mary stressed the importance of the wider role played by opticians, saying that they do not ‘just test how well you can see’ but ‘provide an overall health check and so much more’.
Out of the eight nominees, Alex Miller was named overall Spectacle Wearer of the Year. The 27-year-old from Essex was delighted to be awarded the title and spoke about his award after the show.
‘I am absolutely thrilled to bits – I wasn’t expecting to win at all so it was a huge surprise and honour,’ said Miller.
‘Having gone from being called four-eyes at school, to now becoming the Spectacle Wearer of the Year is just amazing, and goes to show how wearing glasses is something to be really proud of,’ he added.
Over the course of the night, a huge £110,000 was raised for anti-bullying charity Kidscape through ticket sales and a luxury raffle.