[Oliver Goldsmith] My father was really great at getting publicity and sensing good publicity about to happen. When he heard that Diana Spencer was going to go to Australia to talk to her mother about marrying Prince Charles, he realised that this was a major publicity opportunity, and he sent her some sun glasses to wear on her visit to Sydney to see her mother. Unfortunately the sunglasses didn’t arrive in time and he got a hand written note from her when she got back saying how grateful she was for the glasses but they didn’t arrive in time but she would be wearing them from now on because the press were photographing her all the time. When she went on her visit to Thailand with Prince Charles she needed several pairs of sunglasses to go with different outfits. In particular she needed white cause it was summer in Bangkok at that time and she also needed another pair which was made out of red and white to match a dress that she was wearing. So I made these up for her and the publicity was unbelievable because she was photographed everywhere and we were on front covers of virtually every magazine in the world, of Diana wearing her Oliver Goldsmith glasses.
Unfortunately at that time we weren’t allowed to actually mention to the press that we were making the glasses for her, but Jean Rook, who was the fashion editor at the Daily Express and a very close friend of my fathers said this is absolutely ridiculous, I’m going to speak to the palace and get permission to put into the paper that Oliver Goldsmith makes the glasses for Princess Diana, and she did and that was wonderful publicity for us.
The company is over 80 years old, obviously starting from 1926, I’m third generation. I’m very pleased to say that my niece, my late brother’s daughter, has come into the business to run the sunglass division…so now we have a fourth generation, which is very pleasing for me because retro’s very fashionable at the moment, all my designs of the 60s, 70s and 80s are being reproduced and sold now, so it’s very satisfying for me. Also we have potentially a fifth generation in waiting because I had a grandson, my fifth grandson was born three weeks ago and his name is M. Oliver Goldsmith, so that makes me very proud too and hopefully he will come into the business.
