Oliver Goldsmith, Eyewear Designer - Part 3

My father was really great at getting publicity and sensing good publicity about to happen. When he heard that Dianna Spencer was going to go to Australia to her Mother about marrying Prince Charles, he realised that this was a major publicity opportunity and he sent her some sunglasses to wear on her visit to Sydney to see her mother. Unfortunately the sunglasses didn’t arrive in time and he got a hand written note from her when she got back saying how grateful she was for the glasses but they didn’t arrive in time,but she would be wearing them from now on because the press were photographing her all the time. When she went on a visit to Thailand with Prince Charles, she… needed several pairs of sunglasses to go with different outfits. In particular she needed white… because it was summer in Bangkok at that time and she also needed another pair which was made out of… red and white to match a dress that she was wearing. So I made these up for her and… the publicity was unbelievable because she was photographed everywhere and we were on front covers of virtually every magazines in the world of Diana wearing her Oliver Goldsmith glasses. Unfortunately at that time we weren’t allowed to actually mention to the press that we were making the glasses for her. But Gene Rook who was the fashion editor of the Daily Express and a very close friend of my fathers who said ‘this is absolutely ridiculous, im going to speak to the Palace and get permission to put into the paper that you make, Oliver Goldsmith makes the glasses for Princes Diana’ , and she did and that was wonderful publicity for us. The company is over eighty years old, obviously starting from 1926 im third generation I am very pleased to say my Niece, my late brothers daughter… ...has come into the business to run the sunglass division. So now we have a forth generation… ...which is very pleasing for me because retro is very fashionable at the moment , all my designs are the 60s, 70s and 80s are being reproduced and sold now. So its very satisfying for me and also we potentially have a fifth generation in waiting… ...because I had a Grandson, my fifth grandson was born three weeks ago and his name is M. Oliver Goldsmith. So that makes me very proud too and hopefully he will come into the business.