How Much Do Your Designer Glasses Say About Your Personality

Glasses can make, and on occasion define, 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’. Not only do the ‘Lennons’ show how much power a pair of glasses really can have when placed upon the nose of an icon, but it also says a lot about the media. The ‘Lennon’ could as well have been called the ‘Groucho Marx’, the ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ or even the ‘Joseph Stalin’, all of whom wore the same style but it was Lennon’s name that stuck.

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. Sales of this style soared in the wake of the film’s release 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. 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 of the more bizarre pairs of glasses worn by a celebrity were the trademark horn rimmed specs of comedian Eric Sykes. In fact his glasses never had any lenses in them, and were really a bone-resonating hearing aid.