Having been with The Old Glasses Shop for 7 years now, I was thrilled when Mr TOGS invited me to join him in Milan for an international eyewear show - and my first trip to Italy - what an experience!

Over the years I think have learned what you, our customer, wants and Mr TOGS felt my expertise would help in our search for vintage styles that will please and delight you.

We arrived to fabulous warm weather and proceeded to behave like tourists for a few hours. Of course this meant we had to visit the Duomo, but due to a prior engagement for Mr TOGS I set off on my own looking forward to a nice walk. As it turns out it was a nice walk but 5 miles in the wrong direction! Isn't Milan big. Luckily I found a Metro station and after some initial problems (yes, wrong way again) managed to end up in the right place. What an absolutely fantastic building - apparently the largest cathedral in Italy - beautiful.

Next up, Eataly!
A favourite of Mr TOGS, Eataly is basically an IKEA but for all things Italian - fresh food, meats, cheeses, wines (top floor!) , cooking classes, restaurants, utensils, etc etc. Spread over 4 floors the choice and quality is astounding and I was in my element. Mr TOGS introduced me to 'Aperitivo' - a sort of pre dinner tapas with wine... I decided I like aperitivo. In fact, the whole experience was amazing.

Whilst in Milan, one of our long standing favourites Les Pieces Uniques invited us along to their offices to see their latest designs (see below!).

We all know its best to go to dinner with a local so we then joined Mario of LPU for dinner. It is Italy so dinner was pizza of course (when in Italy it's a must). I'm gluten free but Mario had checked and was confident in his decision of an extremely popular local pizza restaurant. The restaurant had only been open for half an hour, and given that you can't make a reservation (its first come, first served) we were VERY lucky to get a table and it was already EXTREMELY busy - I have never seen so many tables crammed into such a small space - excellent I thought, this bodes well for a nice pizza!

High expectations, and Mr TOGS said it was easily one of the best pizzas he had eaten and Mario agreed. Unfortunately, whilst I wanted to agree, my disappointment was palpable - clearly these particular Italians have not mastered the art of gluten free pizza base...yet. After Mr TOGS' TWO desserts we left and were met with a queue of people so long that the restaurant was serving them hot dough balls outside whilst they stood and waited.

So in between the brilliant touristy bits and the awful pizza we spent some exciting time with Marco showing us Les Pieces Uniques' latest eyewear range and 'WOW' was I pleased! This brand has always garnered genuine respect because of the sheer quality of what they do.

I'm delighted to say we now have these frames in stock and on the website. Some of my favourites are Anna, Enea, Benji and the incredible DIABOLIK!

See the Les Pieces Uniques range here