So, we’ve just arrived back from a whirlwind trip across to Italy to check out the biggest optical fair in the world, MIDO in Milan. The big industrial city in the North of Italy doesn’t look like much from the outside looking in, but it has an earthy, honest character. Scratch the surface and you start to uncover the glamorous side of this big old metropolis, making it the perfect place to host a show displaying the world’s biggest sunglasses brands for next season. As ever all the big groups were in attendance; Luxottica, Safilo, Marchon and Marcolin, showing new ranges from brands like Tom Ford Sunglasses, Gucci, Chanel, Dior and Persol.

There’s some real innovation out there with inventive use of textures and minerals. For instance, Vinylize, who create beautifully hand-crafted frames from old vinyl records. Cutler and Gross also had some fabulous laser cut frames which showed beautiful layering and depth of colour. An awful lot of brands seem to be jumping on the wooden sunglasses’ bandwagon, which while looking great don’t really fit on your face, unless you’re a tree!

Angular and fine frames were in abundance, moving forward from the heavy-set silhouettes of last season, traditional styling with lots of Clubmaster and Cateye variations. Carbon fibre and lighter frame technology could also be seen throughout the show, with emphasis on exact tooling and precision engineering a la the Oakley Factory Lite range and Red Bull Racings Carbon styles.

Some great new stuff from Adidas Originals Sunglasses with their custoMIze range, plus a big presence from Persol sunglasses at the Luxottica stand, showing off the new Persol Reflex Edition sunglasses. Marchon highlighted new styles from Fendi and new brands in Chloe Sunglasses and G-Star sunglasses.

But the biggest trend at MIDO…

Multi coloured mirrored lenses; Red, Blue, Gold and Green were EVERYWHERE, appearing on frames for both genders, it’s a nice move on from the usual Grey and Smoke lenses we’ve all become so accustomed too.