7th November 2016

Reading Material: Cubitts' launches Tavistock

- by Anthony Leyton

Reading glasses: an essential tool for millions of people across the world, but they don’t exactly get people excited. It’s not that surprising, really; something you can buy from Poundland or pick up at one of those swivelly stands by the tills in WHSmith doesn’t generally earn a reputation for sexiness.

Which is a shame, given that the history of reading glasses is, essentially, the history of literature interwoven with the history of optical science.

Return of the Reader.

Aids to reading have been used for millennia – Stoic philosopher Seneca is reported to have used a bowl of water to magnify text, while Nero used jewels to get a good eyeful of the slaughter at the Coliseum; monks of the Middle Ages turned to slices of polished crystal on sticks to read their manuscripts – until around 1280, when someone hit upon the idea of attaching a little V of leather between the lens and balancing them on the nose. Voilà: the world’s first pair of reading glasses was created.

It’s probably fair to say that Cubitts’ new Tavistock readers are a heck of a lot better.

Designed in classic half-moon style, with 10 colour finishes available and magnification levels to suit every pair of eyes, Tavistock reading glasses are all crafted by hand, using the same custom fittings and pins as their spectacles and sunglasses; a level of quality that – there’s no polite way to say it – you don’t find in Poundland.

The Tavistock spectacles.

So why are they called Tavistock? Well, because Cubitts are endearingly incapable of doing anything without referencing the cultural and industrial history of London, the glasses pay tribute to Tavistock Square, one of the Thomas Cubitt-developed corners of Camden where many of the modernist members of the Bloomsbury Group lived, worked, published and embarked on sexually imaginative extra-marital liaisons. One of the group’s members, biographer, critic and spectacle wearer Lytton Strachey, is depicted on the limited-edition lens cloth that comes with Tavistock – drawn by the celebrated artist Brian Grimwood.

So, as you’ve probably gathered by now, they’re far from ordinary reading glasses…

Tavistock reading glasses are available exclusively from Cubitts’ Borough Workshop at 9 Park Street, London SE1 9AB from November 17 2016.

The limited-edition lens cloth featuring Lytton Strachey, drawn by Brian Grimwood.