The story in one line: Two optometry students from Northampton met in the early 60s, disagreed on everything about eyewear, and built one of the most distinctive brands in the world out of that disagreement.                                           
                                                                                                                                
Graham Cutler and Tony Gross met at Northampton College while studying optometry. They were opposites. Cutler was precise, technical, quietly insistent on refinement the kind of person who wanted a frame to be correct in every dimension. Gross was flamboyant, mischievous, and creative the kind of person who was already sourcing vintage frames and selling them to rockstars and artists from his inner circle.

In 1969, they founded Cutler and Gross. In 1971, they opened their first store at 16 Knightsbridge Green, London and above it, their framemaker George Smith made each pair entirely by hand. He layered sheets of colour, cut each frame with a jigsaw, carved the grooves, drilled for hinges and lenses, then tumbled them smooth in polishing barrels. Slowly. One at a time.

Word spread without advertising. Artists came. Rock stars came. Royalty came. By the time Cutler and Gross had become a name, it had done so entirely through the quality of what it made and the people who wore it.

Fifty-five years later, the frames are still made by hand in Italy and Japan, by craftspeople who work the same way George Smith worked above that Knightsbridge shop. The methodology hasn't changed. The material standards haven't lowered. The curiosity that Tony Gross brought from day one still runs through every collection.