“We are in the business of fashion. We should look like we are in fashion.” With this statement, dressed entirely in white, Charles Oliver Goldsmith posed with his two sons at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London in 1966. Fashion, indeed. Back in 1926, it had been his father, Philip Oliver Goldsmith (the name Oliver would always remain), who understood its power at a time when eyewear was still considered a medical device. He had opened a small workshop in London where he experimented with different materials and shapes, naturally looking to the evolution of fashion.

Even in the 1930s and 1940s, when war and austerity imposed new habits and forms of consumption, he did not accept the idea that glasses should be limited to medical prescription. It was in the 1950s, however, with the arrival of his son Charles Oliver Goldsmith, that the brand entered the magic circle of fashion. The moment was crucial. Hollywood films increasingly featured actors wearing eyewear to emphasise the personality of the characters they played. Inspired by these images, Charles Oliver Goldsmith began creating bold, audacious shapes with exaggerated geometric lines or cat-eyes with impossible wings, introducing colours never used before.

Then Audrey Hepburn arrived and changed everything, consecrating Oliver Goldsmith as an absolute style icon. In Blake Edwards’ 1961 ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, standing before the Tiffany window in her Givenchy black dress, holding a coffee and a brioche, Audrey wore a pair of Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses. She wore Oliver Goldsmith eyewear in other films too, including ‘Charade’ and ‘Two for the road’. Over time, the list of actors and notable personalities grew longer: princess Diana, Michael Caine, Peter Sellers, Grace Kelly and John lennon, among others. And speaking of John Lennon, the story of Oliver Goldsmith often intersects with legends of music searching for unique accessories to amplify their personality. Both of the era’s great rivals, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, adopted Oliver Goldsmith’s distinctive eyewear language to define their very different identities. Later on, international stars such as Lady Gaga and Robbie Williams followed.

The world has changed and eyewear is no longer viewed simply as an accessory or a necessity. A true revolution is under way aesthetically, culturally and socially, and oliver Goldsmith is actively part of it, absorbing stimuli from a range of contexts. one example: the frame designed “to fill the void”, following the lines of a hairstyle created by Vidal Sassoon in the 1960s. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, Oliver Goldsmith felt the need to reflect on the new direction the sector was taking, increasingly driven by mass production. The company paused for about a decade before resuming in the early 2000s with Claire Goldsmith, the founder’s great-granddaughter, who started precisely from that invaluable archive.