Spex addict: Prism founder Anna Laub opens her first London store

Fashion editor Anna Laub wanted stylish glasses — so she made her own. As she opens her first London store this week she talks to Karen Dacre about life through her lenses
MUST CREDIT: MATT WRITTLE
24 February 2014

Former fashion editor and model Anna Laub had her eureka moment while watching a catwalk show in Paris. Dissatisfied with the glasses on offer in the shops, she decided to launch her own line of spectacles. Five years — and a whole load of specs sales — later and Prism is well on its way to becoming one of the capital’s most successful boutique brands. It has since expanded to include sunglasses, swimwear — Rihanna has a Prism bikini — and a seriously covetable line of beach-ready accessories. This week Laub opens her first London store. Meet the very beautiful woman in the frame.

The girl with glasses

For years, the catwalk was a blur to fashion editor Anna Laub. Troubled by short-sightedness, she viewed stunning McQueen gowns through a hazy fog and reached for her spectacles whenever a designer put intricate embellishment at the top of his agenda. It was during one particular moment of vagueness that the idea for Prism was born. “I was at Paris Fashion Week wearing a crappy pair of 15-year-old glasses when I realised I was spending more on my shoes than the item that was most crucial to me.”

The model

An early career as a model helped Laub, who was signed to Storm at the age of 16, to build a savings account with enough capital to launch Prism. “I was so young,” she says. “I had no idea what was going on.” And yet it was those early days surrounded by photographers and stylists that would prove crucial in later life. “Those days taught me so much about the importance of independence. I always knew I wanted to do my own thing.”

The fashion editor

Thanks to a very fashionable address book — and a host of impressive internships under her belt — Laub had got her head around the fashion industry by the time she finished university. But the call of the French Alps proved too strong for her to stick at a sub-editing job on a style title. As a result, Chamonix’s first free youth-culture magazine was born. “We did it with nothing. It taught me so much,” she says of the two years she spent editing the publication. On returning to London, Laub went on to become fashion editor of a ski and snowboarding magazine before eventually ending up at WGSN. During that period she also edited O, the Observer’s fashion collaboration with Tank magazine.

The traveller

Having completed a degree in French and philosophy, Laub sought adventure in the French Alps, where she spent two years snowboarding. Later, she took a job at fashion insider’s publication WGSN, where she covered fashion weeks in far-off places including India, Moscow and Rio. “The job was about going to new places and discovering new things. That’s the part I loved.” A self-confessed travel addict, Laub wondered about settling in New York before choosing London as Prism’s base. It helped that the capital offers plentiful opportunities for holidays. “You can go anywhere from here,” she says.

The designer

Having come up with a plan to create her own line of luxury eyewear — “No one else was really doing it,” she says — Laub spent a year taking umpteen trips to an acetate manufacturer in northern Italy to hone the perfect pair. “I wanted to get the glasses exactly right,” she says. “I had been buying up vintage glasses I liked the look of in cities across the world but none of them was quite right. I wanted function and style and a product that was seasonless.” It is for this reason that Prism, which launched in 2009, still sells its first collection. For Laub, glasses, much like dentistry and a good haircut, should be “something you want to keep for ever”. Laub later applied the same philosophy to swimwear and to sunglasses, now integral components in her growing empire.

The shopkeeper

Five years on from Prism’s launch and London’s most stylish are head- over-heels with the brand. Loved for its clean, seasonless approach, Prism is stocked in some of the world’s most prestigious style boutiques, from Dover Street Market in London to Colette in Paris. The first stand-alone London shop will serve as a sort of luxe holiday emporium when it opens in Chiltern Street, Marylebone, today. “It’s all about tropical minimalism,” says Laub.

“I wanted to bring sunshine to London and to create somewhere that really celebrates the amazing excitement of a holiday — whatever the destination.”

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