Vintage glasses to match your favourite decade
September 10, 2015Do you wear glasses? Whether you wear them purely for reading or for all the time, do you match your glasses to your outfit?If you’re a vintage glasses fan, then perhaps you look out for vintage frames so they suit your favourite decade.
If you’re trying to emulate a particular person, such as Hepburn, Monroe, or Grace Kelly, you can go retro or look out for an original pair of frames and naturally, get your prescription lenses fitted.
Vintage glasses
If you love vintage perhaps you enjoy emulating a particular look from a film, or the way glasses were worn by an actress or model on a more permanent basis.
Here, we take a fun look at some of the most famous wearer of glasses and see if you see something you’d like to get your hands on.
Marilyn Monroe – How to Marry a Millionaire
In the film How to Marry a Millionaire Marilyn plays a woman who is myopic but takes her glasses off whenever a potential male approaches, she’s heard saying at the end of the film “Men aren’t attentive to girls who wear glasses.”
Not exactly an enthusiastic endorsement to wear vintage glasses, however in real life Marilyn was near sighted, or short sighted as we call it here in the UK, and often wore glasses when she was out of public view.
Vintage glasses-Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly was often seen wearing glasses often and this wasn’t surprising because she was extremely short sighted, and apparently could only see about 6 feet away from her.
As you can imagine she always looked extremely elegant wearing rims that were fashionable at the time, either slightly horn rimmed/winged or aviator style.
Whether they were sunglasses or eye glasses – she always cut a stylish frame.
Buddy Holly-Vintage glasses
Buddy Holly was famous for wearing glasses and at the beginning of his career he was famous for wearing glasses matched with business suits.
Later as he became more style conscious he was advised to ditch his usual pair and buy something more fashionable for the time, such as horn rimmed ones.
He bought a pair of thick rimmed black glasses which were not so much horned rimmed as more square and slightly winged.They were so popular that they would be requested throughout the United States and became known as “Buddy Holly glasses.”
Vintage glasses – Michael Caine
Michael Caine is perhaps one of the most well-known actors to wear glasses, but despite appearing in hundreds of films, he didn’t wear glasses at the beginning of his career.
It was following his appearance in the successful film Zulu that he started wearing them.His glasses were large, plastic dark brown or black.
His trademark thick framed glasses are famous and something we always associate with Caine, especially in the early years, although he later took to wearing smaller and narrower rimmed frames.
So there you have it, some famous wearers of prescription vintage glasses. You can either wear retro copies of the original styles or you can try and source original frames and get prescription lenses fitted.
Always keep hunting through wardrobes of aunts, uncles or parents, you never know what might be lurking at the back of a closet.
Vintage glasses back in the day were thicker and heavier, but now that lenses are more sophisticated, lighter and better made, it should reduce the weight of the frames.
