Contact lenses

And so it is that I find myself with Alain Mikli - the man who designed Betty's glasses and who counts Brad Pitt, Jack Nicholson, Elton John and Bono among his clients - in the hope of getting some tips on stylish spectacles.

After all, he is known in the fashion industry as "the architect of the eyes".Currently, he is straining his own eyes in pain.

"Aye, aye, aye," he laments, shaking his head in despair.The reason for Mikli's anguish?

My decidedly staid, scratched, bent and boring black glasses, which, over the years, have been sat on, dropped and thrown across rooms.

He hands them to his assistant for a clean-up and fixes me with a serious stare.

Turning up to interview Alain Mikli in scratched spectacles is like wearing tatty trainers to interview Manolo Blahnik."For you, it is an obligation to wear glasses, but it should not be," he says.

"It should be like kissing your boyfriend - is that an obligation?

For me, it is such a pleasure to wear glasses.

It makes me look more pretty, more intelligent.

If I take off my glasses, I am only a man with a big nose."He removes his big frames: Mikli is indeed a man with a very big nose.

"That is the good part of eyewear - it helps you to change your face, your personality...

Read more...