V Is In Vogue

So that's V Festival done for another year. And as expected it was another blinder, one that ended in a stream of tired but happy faces exiting the gates of Hylands Park in Essex and Weston Park in Staffordshire.





We got to see Jessie J on stage much like she was when Sunglasses Shop saw her at The Big Chill – with one leg strapped in a cast and the rest of her squeezed into a ironically-garish catsuit. A mere broken leg can't stop a determined entertainer like Jessie J!



The Arctic Monkeys rattled through their hits and grabbed attention as much for their adrenaline-fuelled performance as they did for Alex Turner's new haircut, which has so far divided opinions across the fashion, music and gossip magazines. We at Sunglasses Shop like the change though - fifties fashion statements always gets the thumbs up from us. Just like these fantastically fifties Ray-Ban sunglasses.





Mark Ronson made sure to play 'Valerie' in tribute to his old friend Amy Winehouse. He was joined by Dionne Bromfield, Amy's goddaughter, for the tribute – an emotional moment that left no watching eyes dry.



Rihanna brought a bit of spice to V and wore not very much at all, making sure she gave everyone something to remember. Eminem finished off Sunday's line-up, with Rihanna taking to the stage with him for an explosive version of 'Love The Way You Lie' closing the festival for another year. Roll on the next one!

Tom Ford's Muse

Jon Kortajarena, the sultry muse of design-supremo Tom Ford, makes a striking appearance in a Tom Ford advert in the September issue of GQ. One side of the advert sees him dressed in a giant black coat, the other side sees him wearing an electric blue velour jacket with a lovely bit of accessorising – a bow tie.

Jon's also dressed up with the Tom Ford Campbell, a wayfarer inspired frame that suits him perfectly. Then again, when you're one of the highest earning models in the world like Jon, pretty much anything is guaranteed to suit you. The lucky devil.

Many people will recognise Jon from his part in Tom Ford's award-winning film A Single Man. He played a temptatious drifter who momentarily distracted Colin Firth's character from his grief over his dead lover. Tom Ford counts Jon as one of his muses, along with ex-Skins actor Nicholas Hoult, and perhaps the distraction experienced by Colin Firth's character was inspired by the relationship between Tom Ford and Jon? The mind boggles.

Jon Kortajarena has inspired Tom Ford, and Tom Ford has inspired us at Sunglasses Shop. We wonder if it goes full circle – has Jon ever been inspired by Sunglasses Shop? We'd like to think so.

Take Your Sunglasses Somewhere Nice

England hasn't had the best summer. Looking back, it feels like every day was a cloud-covered one and we felt bad for our poor sunglasses suffering in the gloomy weather.

But what could we do? We're sunglasses gurus, not travel agents. We're stuck here. Or, at least, we were.

We've been working on something special, something exciting. The world's first travel guide for globe-trotting sunglasses.

Why not give your sunglasses the sunny treat they deserve? Heck, you could even go on holiday with them.

Sunglasses Shop At The Big Chill

Sunglasses Shop were lucky enough to get tickets for The Big Chill and, well, let's just say it took us a while to recover when we returned home last week. Late nights, traipsing up and down hills, having a little dance... the weekend took its toll on us. But when we got home it sure didn't take long for us to start missing Eastnor Castle, so we're pretty glad we've got our festival guide to help us relive the memories.

We checked out the acts, sampled The Big Chill's festival food, and, of course, went on the hunt for those all-important sunglasses. We hassled the festival-going public and made them pose for us in all their shade-tastic glory - we even got some snaps of rapper Chipmunk rocking out in Ray-Ban.

So check out our Big Chill experience in all its chilled out glory - if you were there, you might even spot yourself.