Contemporary Vision

My glasses are a couple of years old now, and the plastic frames had faded. I also have a vague sense that they are less fashionable than they once were, not that I'm ever fashionable anyway. Since my insurance benefits have just turned over, I thought I'd get a new pair.

Alas, there are some issues with "contemporary" eyewear. First of all, it's not very contemporary. Stores are proudly showing some truly enormous glasses, harking back to the sixties and seventies--and not in a good way. Seriously, these glasses would be right at home on old photos of Elton John.

There are even a lot of white plastic frames. I tried some, just to see if I would look like Truman Capote. I can't imagine who they'd look good on, but I can safely say that it's a very small segment of the general population. There was also a spectacular pair of sparkly red Farragamos that at least looked like they knew they were a joke. Maybe you could wear them with irony and salvage a shred of your dignity.

The other trend I'm not so keen on is the giant arm. I'm not sure what they're called, but the arms on the sides of glasses have suddenly become very wide and bold.* Peripheral vision, never any great advantage for us bespectacled types, is thus reduced to nothing. And it's not just that you can't see what's there--it's that you're constantly seeing something that shouldn't be. It feels like a giant monster is sneaking up on you.

And the best part about having a billboard glued to either side of your glasses is that the designer can advertise. Nothing says, "I bought a pair of designer glasses" like a huge-ass "D&G" glued to either temple (some of the logos are helpfully covered with rhinestones--niiiice). Personally, I question this as a trademarking strategy. If you're going to sell something spectacularly ugly, you probably don't want to admit culpability. Everyone in the store looked like Michael Caine in "The Ipcress File." It's not the sort of thing I'd rush to claim responsibility for.

I did find a nice pair in the end, but I'm sure they're attractive enough to be considered "retro." They are by Prada, but I think you'd have to get within a foot of me to actually read that, so I'm trying not to hold it against them.

*Upon rereading this, it occurred to me that this is probably an engineering necessity. You can't support truly enormous specs on a slender reed.