They look great on you with that hat Rick! Glad to hear that you think so too & continue to look for another vintage pair of aviators. They definitely add to a vintage look.
What an honour Jack, there's one pair of spectacles that I bought at a vintage festival and had them fitted with my own prescription. The first time they got an airing was when dining out with friends and everyone was saying: "You look like what's his name?" Nobody could remember the character portrayed by Ronald Lacey in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. "Major Arnold Toht," I informed them.
I went for many years without owning any actual sunglasses. Without prescriptions lenses I can see well enough to bumble my way around, but it's a pest and I couldn't really enjoy something like the cinema to the full extent - I'd be able to see the picture, but it'd be 'soft-focus' and lacking in the sort of detail that makes the cinema worth paying for...
Around 2007, I was planning to have my eyes lasered and so I picked up a few pairs of decent sunglasses, which I still have around somewhere (All Raybans; the wife mostly wears them now). Plans changed as my eyesight improved a little. I'd been using sunglasses a lot when I wore contacts. Originally bought contacts for costume usage (particularly during my Rocky Horror shadow casting days; teetering around a dark cinema in six inch heels, I really needed my full vision), and for a bit had fallen into wearing them regularly. Around the time my eyesight improved, I also discovered glasses I actually liked, and so I've barely worn the contacts since. The sunglasses went by the wayside, as I was back to having at least one pair of glasses which had a photochromic tint, which darkens and lightens in reaction to the sun. From the age of 16, all my glasses had been like that, though I do usually now have a pair or two that are clear lenses just because I like them that way. My first pair of prescription sunglasses came along a few years ago for little reason other than that the optician I used was offering a twofer, and I didn't see any glasses other than the first pair I picked that I actually liked. I rather surprised myself with the amount of wear I got out of them, and plan to pick up another pair or two in future.
TL/DR, based on my above experience, these are my thoughts on sunglasses with a fedora and/or the look we favour in these parts:
1] Rayban Wayfarers - a great casual shape, though mix with a fedora with care if you are sensitive to Blues Brothers references being made by passers-by. Oddly, tortoise-shell colour frames get less of this; most folks don't seem to notice that's what Jake Blues / John Belushi wore... For a 50s look, I'm rather fond of the rounder-variation on this shape that Johnny Depp often wears:
I like what he does with lens colours: this blue looks good; a lilac-purple tint also looks great with tortoiseshell.
I have a pair in this general vein from Specsavers - wish they'd do more of them in more varied colours:
Not the best photo, alas, but the only one I seem to have of me wearing them....
2] Browlines - Shuron developed this style in 1947 as the Ronsir model; I have had a few pairs of these now, still in production, and they are great. Rayban sell their version as the Clubmaster. Tip: I was once advised by my optician not to pay out for Raybans if I was going to have prescription lenses put in them: in his view, the quality of the lens is the lion's share of the cost of a pair, so it's a waste to buy them and then junk the lenses for rx ones.
I think browlines look great for a post-war look. Definitely archetypal for 50s & 60s; in the US for almost those entire two decades, around 50% of glasses frames sold were browline style. I like how they sit a little less heavy on the face than a Wayfarer can do. Bonus ball: if you need a prescription lens, some opticians won't do more than a couple of changes on an all-plastic frame, but something where you screw or unscrew it to hold the lens is fine.
Shuron Ronsirs:
Specsavers' own-brand version:
The Shurons again:
3] Pre-war styles. I have a pair of these with clear glass:
These are mine, they work quite well in the vintagey context, despite being 'modern':
While mine are clear lensed, I think these would also work well with a tint to them.
I'm also planning to at some point pick up a couple of Civil War era styles, like this:
I fancy some with very dark tinted lenses, perhaps lilac or blue. Great for a bit of an 1880s to anywhere up to the 30s look, imo. This saddle style bridge gradually became less common from, as memory serves, the later 20s when nosepads were first seen on spectacles.
4] Aviators. This is a style I disliked for a long time, until I discovered the secret: it's all about the lens shape. I don't care for a teardrop shape per the USAAF originals; I think the over-sized teardrops of the 70s soured me on it. That and some spectacles of that style I had in the mid-eighties which weren't the best look on me. I have discovered I like them with slightly smaller, rounder lenses. A sort of anachronism, but more of a pre-war look I think:
I think these look good with a brimmed hat too:
All done and said, I tend to find that sunglasses are much like any other accessory: a surefire way to make them look "right" with a fedora or such is to take style cues from what they might have been worn with in a particular period. My rule of themb is smaller and rounder for pre-war, and browlines or similar post-war.
Quite so Eric, Edward does do a great post. "Teetering around in six inch heels," the image that conjurs up!Excellent post Edward. I like the way that you have broken down the accessory, sunglasses. The post war glasses are my fav style as I now recognize that is mostly the style influence of the clothes that I wear in public. BTW: The Johnny Depp, Moscot Lemtosch's are the influence of my glasses.
Cheers, Eric -
Great post! I especially like the ones in the bottom 2 pics. I've worn glasses 30 years now, since age 13. A couple years ago I started wearing contacts mostly to be able to wear sunglasses I liked. A 3 months ago I needed a new pair of glasses because I had bacteria trying to eat a hole in my cornea! No contacts until it healed. I bought a budget $99 package deal because they was only going to be backups to contacts. I picked these out specifically because they had a retro wayfarer vibe.I went for many years without owning any actual sunglasses. Without prescriptions lenses I can see well enough to bumble my way around, but it's a pest and I couldn't really enjoy something like the cinema to the full extent - I'd be able to see the picture, but it'd be 'soft-focus' and lacking in the sort of detail that makes the cinema worth paying for...
Around 2007, I was planning to have my eyes lasered and so I picked up a few pairs of decent sunglasses, which I still have around somewhere (All Raybans; the wife mostly wears them now). Plans changed as my eyesight improved a little. I'd been using sunglasses a lot when I wore contacts. Originally bought contacts for costume usage (particularly during my Rocky Horror shadow casting days; teetering around a dark cinema in six inch heels, I really needed my full vision), and for a bit had fallen into wearing them regularly. Around the time my eyesight improved, I also discovered glasses I actually liked, and so I've barely worn the contacts since. The sunglasses went by the wayside, as I was back to having at least one pair of glasses which had a photochromic tint, which darkens and lightens in reaction to the sun. From the age of 16, all my glasses had been like that, though I do usually now have a pair or two that are clear lenses just because I like them that way. My first pair of prescription sunglasses came along a few years ago for little reason other than that the optician I used was offering a twofer, and I didn't see any glasses other than the first pair I picked that I actually liked. I rather surprised myself with the amount of wear I got out of them, and plan to pick up another pair or two in future.
TL/DR, based on my above experience, these are my thoughts on sunglasses with a fedora and/or the look we favour in these parts:
1] Rayban Wayfarers - a great casual shape, though mix with a fedora with care if you are sensitive to Blues Brothers references being made by passers-by. Oddly, tortoise-shell colour frames get less of this; most folks don't seem to notice that's what Jake Blues / John Belushi wore... For a 50s look, I'm rather fond of the rounder-variation on this shape that Johnny Depp often wears:
I like what he does with lens colours: this blue looks good; a lilac-purple tint also looks great with tortoiseshell.
I have a pair in this general vein from Specsavers - wish they'd do more of them in more varied colours:
Not the best photo, alas, but the only one I seem to have of me wearing them....
2] Browlines - Shuron developed this style in 1947 as the Ronsir model; I have had a few pairs of these now, still in production, and they are great. Rayban sell their version as the Clubmaster. Tip: I was once advised by my optician not to pay out for Raybans if I was going to have prescription lenses put in them: in his view, the quality of the lens is the lion's share of the cost of a pair, so it's a waste to buy them and then junk the lenses for rx ones.
I think browlines look great for a post-war look. Definitely archetypal for 50s & 60s; in the US for almost those entire two decades, around 50% of glasses frames sold were browline style. I like how they sit a little less heavy on the face than a Wayfarer can do. Bonus ball: if you need a prescription lens, some opticians won't do more than a couple of changes on an all-plastic frame, but something where you screw or unscrew it to hold the lens is fine.
Shuron Ronsirs:
Specsavers' own-brand version:
The Shurons again:
3] Pre-war styles. I have a pair of these with clear glass:
These are mine, they work quite well in the vintagey context, despite being 'modern':
While mine are clear lensed, I think these would also work well with a tint to them.
I'm also planning to at some point pick up a couple of Civil War era styles, like this:
I fancy some with very dark tinted lenses, perhaps lilac or blue. Great for a bit of an 1880s to anywhere up to the 30s look, imo. This saddle style bridge gradually became less common from, as memory serves, the later 20s when nosepads were first seen on spectacles.
4] Aviators. This is a style I disliked for a long time, until I discovered the secret: it's all about the lens shape. I don't care for a teardrop shape per the USAAF originals; I think the over-sized teardrops of the 70s soured me on it. That and some spectacles of that style I had in the mid-eighties which weren't the best look on me. I have discovered I like them with slightly smaller, rounder lenses. A sort of anachronism, but more of a pre-war look I think:
I think these look good with a brimmed hat too:
All done and said, I tend to find that sunglasses are much like any other accessory: a surefire way to make them look "right" with a fedora or such is to take style cues from what they might have been worn with in a particular period. My rule of themb is smaller and rounder for pre-war, and browlines or similar post-war.
HaHa! I said easily influenced not easily scammed.
Ha ha! Out of town on the job yrs ago I was running down a row of bars one night in an entertainment district, one after another & all with catchy names. I came to about the fifth or sixth one in a row, & I stumbled into a soup kitchen having a prayer service before the street people got their meal. I quickly stumbled back outside, looked up at the name of the place & it was "The All Souls Inn".
OK, I am sooooo easily influenced HJ.
After your post @Hurricane Jack , I immediately went on the hunt for some aviators with the extra nose bridge thingy, and I'm looking for more.
They look good, Rick. Especially with the hat for a more vintage era look. They can fit small by today's profile.
Look good to me, Rick
I have to agree with @Hurricane Jack and @Bamaboots--those sunglasses complement you without being absurdly oversized like a lot of "aviator" style sunglasses have become over the years; the rounded shape of the lenses suits you very well, and they pair with that hat nicely.
