Luxury Goods SpecialMonocles

I have been toying with the idea of founding a Cyclops Club, drawing its membership from the dwindling band of individualists who persist in defying the zeitgeist of Cool Britannia by wearing a single eyeglass, commonly known as a monocle. We are a species threatened with extinction and we probably qualify for victimhood, as an oppressed minority.

The impending crisis first became apparent last summer when an incident in Bromley provoked national headlines. Brian Dowling, a retired scriptwriter who had worn a monocle for 30 years, went to the Bromley branch of opticians Dollond & Aitchison to renew his prescription, only to be told, ‘We don’t do them any more.’ The ensuing publicity caused Dollond & Aitchison to issue a hasty reassurance that they would continue to sell monocles at their main London store in Wigmore Street. The manageress commented, ‘I would say we sell about 20 eyeglasses a year, so it’s not a big part of our business. The people who buy them are older, perhaps fashion-conscious. Some are pretty eccentric as well.’

That is probably fair comment. An eyeglass is convenient and stylish; it can be brought into occasional service to scan a menu or a theatre programme, then forgotten. Above all, it is a Cavalier accessory in an increasingly Roundhead world. It is the antithesis of New Labour; so far from being socially inclusive, it is uncompromisingly exclusive. Yet, if it is incompatible with Blairism, it is equally alien to the new Tories. The last eminent Tory to sport an eyeglass was Sir Angus Maude; with the party now firmly under the kitten-heel of Theresa May, it is unthinkable that such reactionary eye-wear would ever be permitted on the conference platform.

The social nuance between the terms ‘eyeglass’ and ‘monocle’ should briefly be noted.