London is a city steeped in the history of spectacle design. From the earliest pair of spectacles ever discovered - the 15th century ‘Trig Lane’ bone spectacles - found during excavations of the city’s ancient walls, to Cubitts’ ‘Frame for London’, composed of detritus gathered ‘mudlarking’ on the banks of the Thames, including Tudor hair pins, a WW2 bullet, and—like their mediaeval forebears—animal bones. 

Cubitts is now one of a small handful of companies making spectacles in London. As such, we resolved to add our own chapter to the history of spectacles and Thames silt, setting off on a mudlarking excursion to the shoreline with ‘Mud God’ Steve Brooker. We gathered Tudor hair-pins, an animal jawbone, a Victorian marble, fragments of Bellarmine ‘witch pots’, clay pipes, and a WWII bullet casing. 

We took these finds to the Cubitts King’s Cross workshop, and suspended them in a clear bio-resin, before cutting and shaping into a spectacle silhouette. Layer upon lay