I know a bit about clothes and maybe kind of a lot about shoes, but when it came to sunglasses, I was clueless.

Until last week when I spent the morning at Silver Lining Opticians. It’s a hole in the wall on Thompson Street run by Jordan Silver and Erik Sacher and an absolute mecca of vintage frames.

But before I really got it, I needed a tutorial. Here’s how he explained it to me: In the early 80s, a man named Leonardo Del Vecchio started offering designers the opportunity to license eyewear. Before then, designers had treated the accessory as an extension of their ready-to-wear collection. For example, Christian Dior was one of the first brands to offer eyewear and he made super high quality frames that correlated to the kind of product on his runway. But Luxottica gave designers an “easy option,” and over the years production quality’s steadily declined.

When we were younger, we loved Legos. Making little towns could entertain us for hours— or until our Barbie showed up and totally towered over her supposed home.

And we think that these Jean-Charles de Castelbajac customizable Lego sunglasses that we found on Dazed Digital, are too funny.

The sunglasses are available in red, white, and yellow, and can be customized by adding Lego as you please.

While we think that in some cases, paying to DIY a designer product, like this $5,500 Fendi baguette and this lettered black Roger Vivier bag, can get kind of ridiculous.

That said, we can’t help but want to try to create our own Lego masterpiece. And at just over $150, the shades are quite a bit cheaper than the make-you-own purses.

With Ray Ban offering up their Colorize kit, and items like the One-Dress being sold, we have to ask, do you get nervous at the thought of being left to your own devices and prefer your purchases to be ready-made or are you willing to shell out to DIY your designer goods?

—MELISSA ELLIOTT

The next logical step from Ray-Ban, via WWD this morning:

Following the success of the Wayfarers revival (so successful we’re sick of them), Ray-Ban’s reintroducing another oldie/goodie from their archive, the Clubmasters, from the golden year of 1986, already recently spotted on the likes of Agyness and Rachel Bilson.

The style will get six new bright colors added to its repertoire (in addition to classic black and tortoise), launching at a small concert at the Bowery Ballroom on December 9th.

Each pair will retail for $129. But if you can’t wait (and feel like this season’s sales need to be respected), you could throw a pair onto your Amazon holiday order for $99 - that is, of course, if you won’t want to flick them off people’s faces by New Year’s.

While most people will either sleep in or try to get a good deal on a family supply of scarves this Friday, here’s something fun you could do instead:

Stop by the Sunglass Hut (between 1pm and 5pm) in Soho to watch artist Chris Mendoza hand-paint 100 pair of Wayfarers with graffiti-ish illustrations for customers to either buy on the spot, or to be sold on SunglassHut.com starting December 3rd.

The specs will go for $250 a pop, with 25% of the proceeds going to Gift of Sight.

That is, of course, if you haven’t tired completely of seeing them on the face of every person under 30 (Or, you know, that part about “$250.”)

There’s a store on our street called Linda Derector.

Their window’s always full of super awesome sunglasses, both new and vintage, that make us wish we had a few hundred dollars to spend on something we know we’ll lose within two years.

It’s this thing we have with eyewear, whether it’s a $4 pair of Forever 21s or a $300 pair of Stella McCartneys - they never last more than two years.

But we finally went into the store today, and lo and behold, they’re having a 40% off sale which means $195 vintage Raybans are $117 and $200 vintage Bulgaris are $120. Which means we might be able to justify a purchase.

Which means you should swing by, too.

(It’s on Mott between Prince and Spring.)

We thought Gwyneth Paltrow’s July Bazaar cover was just a very delayed reaction to Iron Man - turns out it’s part of a 40-page Estée Lauder campaign that continues within the magazine, just barely disguised as editorial.

The cosmetic giant placed the four faces of their new perfume, Sensuous, throughout the issue, even though the actual ads don’t debut until fall. The move means a priceless Gwyneth cover for Bazaar and an insane amount of advertising for Estée Lauder before their ads, (which also feature Elizabeth Hurley, Carolyn Murphy and Hilary Rhoda), even hit.

This weekend, The New York Times asked if the partnership meant Hearst, (which owns Bazaar) was selling out, before admitting that it’s actually a pretty smart move.

This morning, WWD reports an even cooler partnership between Marie Claire, (which is also owned by Hearst) and Ray-Ban. The two have commissioned five New York City artists to create billboards to promote Ray-Ban’s new colored Wayfarers. And the magazine will also run three times more Ray-Ban ads this year than ever before.

The symbiotic relationship between fashion magazines and fashion advertisements has been losing steam as circulation has slowed for print publications and more companies turn to online advertising. So while at first these ad campaigns, whether subliminal like Estée Lauder’s or in your face like Ray-Ban’s, seemed a bit desperate, we actually think they’re kind of cool - especially when real artists are getting into the mix and what used to be a boring ad gets taken to a new creative level.

We actually kind of love it, and we’re sure Andy Warhol’s probably giggling in his grave.