Anglo american “butterfly” glasses
Meet the New Butterflies in My Museum
Meet one of the newest — and certainly one of the most extraordinary — additions to my collection: my vintage Anglo American butterfly glasses.
Created by the British eyewear brand Anglo American, these spectacular frames turn the entire face into a butterfly. The shimmering turquoise-blue frame forms the outline of the wings, while lenses in different colours create the effect of translucent sections of a real butterfly’s wings.
They are extravagant, theatrical and completely unapologetic — exactly the kind of eyewear I believe deserves to be preserved as a piece of optical art.
You can take a closer look at the glasses from every angle in The Museum of Glasses collection →.
Curious to see what other vintage Anglo American treasures are still out there? Have a look here →
The Glasses I Finally Allowed Myself to Buy
I had known about these glasses for a long time. I had admired them, dreamed about them — and repeatedly told myself that I simply could not justify buying them. Until one day I realised that if I continued being afraid of investing in the things I truly believed belonged in my future museum, I might never build that museum at all.
And then something rather magical happened… while visiting a tropical butterfly garden in Konya.
There is much more to this story: Konya, hundreds of butterflies flying freely around me, a rather frightening parcel wrapped in paper, and the moment I finally put these Anglo American butterflies on my face.
I told the whole story in my YouTube video
Butterflies by the Mediterranean
And then I took them to Datca. Against the blue of the Mediterranean, these glasses suddenly looked completely at home. Their shimmering turquoise-blue frame echoed the colour of the sea, while the pale yellow and smoky lenses caught the warm Mediterranean light.
They may be vintage British eyewear, but here, surrounded by sun, rocks, trees and endless blue water, they looked as if they had been waiting for the Mediterranean all along. Perhaps dream glasses deserve a dream setting.
The Outfit: Second-Hand Finds, Friendship and Family
For something as extraordinary as these Anglo American butterfly glasses , I didn’t want the rest of the outfit to feel too polished or too ordinary.
Both the green gingham top and printed skirt are second-hand finds. I love the slightly chaotic combination of checks, sea creatures, plants and colour — somehow it makes perfect sense with a gigantic blue butterfly sitting on my face.
The river pearl necklace belonged to my grandmother, but I added the shell pendant myself. I love that it now carries a little bit of her history and a little bit of mine — and here in Datca, the shell couldn’t have felt more appropriate.
My beautiful sandals were a gift from a dear Turkish friend, while the turquoise string bag was a gift from my wonderful Uzbek friend.
So in the end, almost nothing in this outfit is simply something I went into a shop and bought.
And in the middle of all of it, there is one enormous blue butterfly — a pair of glasses I once thought I would never allow myself to own.
