Cubitts’ London show RETROSPECTIVE charts the rich world of glasses from their birth 4,000 years ago.

“Sixty-nine per cent of people have a pair of spectacles,” says Mr Tom Broughton, “but for most people, it’s something they don’t really think about, despite that in the middle of their face and hiding in plain sight, is centuries of amazing history.” Mr Broughton – the founder of artisanal optician Cubitts – is a man who looks beyond his nose, however, and has curated the entire history of spectacles into a single exhibition.

Small but comprehensive, the project is set up in the open air of London’s St James’ Market Pavilion and is comprised of glass cases which house various frames that tell six centuries of spectacle history, appositely titled RETROSPECTIVE. This includes glasses made from traditional materials such as horn, all the way up to experimental materials including coal, yoghurt-pots, and a pair that Cubitts have crafted from a mixture of resin and human hair. The exhibition also includes a range of 20th century frames including spectacles and sunglasses worn by Ms Julia Roberts, and Messrs Michael Caine and John Lennon, as well as fashion-forward glasses from Oliver Goldsmith and Cutler And Gross.

Mr Broughton may have only founded Cubitts in 2012, but his knowledge of – and enthusiasm for – specs extends far beyond that. “If you ask the esoteric question ‘what is a pair of spectacles?’, there are forms that have been used for 4,000 years,” explains Mr Broughton. “Inuits, for instance, had the oldest form of visual correction where they carved wood or ivory into frames (which Cubitts have replicated for the exhibition) and cut little slits in it to stop glare, but they didn’t have any kind of corrective lenses. Emperor Nero allegedly used to look through an emerald to watch gladiator matches, but glasses as we know them didn’t really appear until much later.”

The oldest pair of spectacles ever found in London were recovered in the mud of the Thames, and Cubitts have mirrored this nicely with one of their biggest achievements to date: a hefty pair of specs crafted from items that have been mudlarked from the river. Foraging the river for flotsam, some of which has been there for hundreds of years, the spectacles that Cubitts have made contain detritus including a WWII bullet, a horse’s tooth, ship’s nails, some Tudor hairpins from Elizabethan times, some Victorian marble and old clay pipes from when tobacco was introduced. “There is literally 600 years of London in there,” says Mr Broughton.

That 600 years is a lot to fit into a little exhibit, but Mr Broughton has managed it well. “The whole premise of this exhibition was that nobody really thinks about this history, especially in the context of London,” says Mr Broughton. “I felt like all those stories around spectacles had been forgotten, but it’s something we’re finally rediscovering.”

RETROSPECTIVE is free to the public at St James’ Market Pavilion and is open now