CW Dixey launches Chartwell glasses collection including frames worn by Sir Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill with Franklin D Roosevelt, Casablanca, 1943. Photo courtesy of the Franklin D Roosevelt Library and Museum; version date 2009

CW Dixey & Son is the oldest independent eyewear company in the world. Its history straddles four centuries and its frames have been worn by an A-list unlike any other.

The current owners of CW Dixey have spent the past couple of years creating the above collection, the centrepiece of which is Chartwell 01, replicas of the round glasses worn by Churchill. These are directly above, and at the top on the red background, alongside Chartwell 02, which is a remake of Churchill's reading glasses. Both frames are handmade in France from original dimensions, using the best Mazzuchelli acetates in light and dark tortoiseshell and black. There are then seven other limited edition frames (Chartwell 03 and 07 are featured above) in the collection which bring together sophisticated designs of the 50s and 60s to the modern day. So hats off to CW Dixey & Son - it's created a great new collection. But if there wasn't the back-story, the distinguished patrons, the coat of arms, the amazing history, this collection would still stand out as being extremely well made. I've had all nine styles in my hands and they're tip top quality. Worth every penny of the £380+ price tag. Oh, one more thing: the spectacle cases are pretty fine too!

HISTORY & PATRONS Forget Lady Gaga, Rihanna and the rest of the paparazzi's targets of today; how about Sir Winston Churchill for a little endorsement? Impressed? Then read on, because CW Dixey has the most astonishing list of customers I've ever come across.  As well as Churchill, there are no fewer than 10 other British prime ministers, including: Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Ramsay MacDonald and the Duke of Wellington. Who else? How about Queen Victoria? Yes, alongside Prince Albert , George VI, V, IV and III. I could go on. Okay, a few more: Ian Fleming, Peter Sellers, Tennessee Williams, Boris Karloff .... the list is endless. Did I mention Napoleon Bonaparte? He had a telescope rather than spectacles but that's what Dixey did too. It was "Optician and Mathematical Instrument Maker". CW Dixey had premises at 3 Bond Street, London, below, which was sadly bombed in World War II.