Glasses can make, and on occasion define, the man (or woman!). John Lennon was instantly recognisable thanks to his round lens coloured Windsor style that are now much more commonly referred to as a “Lennon”. Apart from demonstrating the power of designer glasses in terms of style, that also illustrates the importance of the other component of contemporary celebrity – 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.
Of course much of the reason anyone wears designer glasses is because of looking good and getting the image they want, but that doesn’t always mean looking cool. You only have to look as far as the two Ronnies with their horn rim specs which were all the logo their show really needed. Their glasses became easily as iconic and recognisable as those of Lennon or Cruise but in the case of the two Ronnies, the point was to make them look sillier and more geeky. 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.
Tags: Adolescent Fantasy, Aviator Sunglasses, Dennis Taylor, designer glasses, designer sunglasses, Eric Sykes, F14 Tomcat, glasses, Groucho Marx, Joseph Stalin, Kelly Mcgillis, Mahatma Gandhi, Naval Aviation, Pop Michael Jackson, Real Stars, Snooker Player, Swivel Lens, Two Ronnies, Windsor Style, Woman John Lennon, World Snooker