By day a high (and frequent) flyer at fashion industry website WGSN, Laub was such a frustrated shopper that founded her own company. Now, with her eyewear line PRISM, she sees things crystal clearly...

Dazed Digital: Did PRISM evolve from ideas whilst travelling for your day job?
Anna Laub: I was thinking about doing jewellery actually – but at the same time I was desperately trying to find glasses to buy. I had money to spend and literally could not find what I wanted. And somewhere along the way the two ideas crossed over. I really saw a need in the market for something a bit different to what was there already – and specifically exactly what I wanted and was looking for. And I decided that if you have a really clear aesthetic you can pretty much translate it into anything: furniture, jewellery, glasses. Also I didn’t want to start creating excess product – for me it was really important that there was a need for it in the market and it wasn’t just another product to add to all the others.So whilst I wouldn’t say it evolved from my day job, some of the ideas like the names of the styles, did. As I travel a lot for WGSN – I oversee all of our content coming in from Europe – I am constantly tracking what people are wearing, designing, looks people are focusing on, all around the world, from Stockholm to Rio, as well as Paris, London and New York in between.

DD: What makes each frame chime with such a specific city?
Anna Laub: Yes they are places I’ve travelled to for work or for fun. Part of my day job is to identify cultural styles and trends and each frame just reminded me of the street style in each of those cities.

DD: Each frame is pretty unique too...
Anna Laub: They are all made of blocks of acetate. The acetates are developed in blocks and then the frames are cut out of these blocks and handfinished, so yes every single pair is unique. Most of the colours of acetate were picked from an archive that dates back to 1849.

DD: Your lookbook is made up of familiar faces wearing PRISM. How did characters such as stylist Erika Kurihara get involved? Is the idea of a holistic approach - using your friends as models - important to you?
Anna Laub: When I first started designing the glasses I was designing them for myself, but I was also imagining people I knew wearing them: friends in the industry, people I worked with at WGSN. I felt that some of these people were almost involved in the process of me starting up this line and so it felt natural to put them in the lookbook. For example, Maryse Boxer makes bespoke interiors and is kind of like my mentor, following the project from the beginning. Erika K wears glasses and was one of the first stylists to see the full collection - she loved them and was so encouraging. And Celina Sinden almost acted as my muse from beginning to end…. I also wanted to demonstrate that lots of very different looking people look good in the different shapes and colours. I wanted to show what they look like on real people of all different ages. These glasses are not supposed to take over your look but to add to it, and encourage whatever style or individuality you have already - it was really about taking people that had a great style story already and show how the glasses add to that.

DD: Do you have any other projects up your sleeve for the future?
Anna Laub: A couple. We’ll see…