Designer Glasses As A Statement
We all know glasses change the way we look but in some cases they can really make the man (or woman!). John Lennon’s trademark round lenses were so recognisable that the style came to be named after him as the ‘Lennon’. This isn’t only a demonstration of how much glasses can influence a person’s image but also says something about the modern media. Lennon glasses could just as easily been called after Groucho Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, or Joseph Stalin, – they all wore the same style.
The movie Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise as Lt Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and Kelly McGillis as Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood with adequate support from Val Kilmer as Lt Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, launched several careers and fuelled many an adolescent fantasy, arguably the real stars though were the aviator sunglasses that adorned the cast in most of the movie. In the immediate aftermath of the screening, sales of this particular style took off a quickly as the F14 Tomcat jet fighters, which at the time were the zenith of US naval aviation. Aviator style shapes are also the preferred designer sunglasses of Cristiano Ronaldo and were the accessory of choice for the late king of pop, Michael Jackson.
Obviously the main purpose of designer glasses for most people is image, but that image doesn’t always mean looking as cool as possible. Just look at the two Ronnies in their famous geeky horn rim glasses which literally became the very trademark of their show. Easily as widely recognisable as the glasses of Cruise and Lennon, these specs had a very different agenda of deliberately making the wearers look as silly as possible. Snooker player Dennis Taylor’s famous designer glasses had a distinctive, swivel-lens, upside-down design. Those glasses helped Taylor win the world snooker title, even if they did look a bit strange. One strange celebrity glasses situation was that of comedian Eric Sykes who was never seen without his trademark black horn rim specs. In fact his glasses never had any lenses in them, and were really a bone-resonating hearing aid.
