By Preston Fassel
It’s still a good time to be a guy.
Last year, I heralded the coming of Guywear, a new frame of mind for a new kind of guy—one acutely aware of his own image and ready to own it, rather than hide behind contacts or the dreaded squint. It’s a movement that’s shown no sign of slowing down over the course of 2013, as mens’ eyewear has continued to diversify and multiply in variety of style. Perhaps at no other time in the history of eyeglasses have so many options been so readily available—or so heartily embraced. With only two months left until 2015, let’s take a look at the State of the Dispensary, and all that’s come and gone (mostly come) since we last sat down at the dispensing table.
Plastics have continued their market dominance, aesthetically defining the early 2010s as an era of heavy, ’60s-influenced frames. As predicted in 2013, this became the year of the browline, as the classic style (which slowly began gaining traction in the early 2010s) took off, being offered in unprecedented numbers by virtually every manufacturer on the market. The year also saw the rebirth of the mono-browline, an ’80s curiosity that died on the vine in the MTV age but found new life amongst the Gen-Xers and boomers in the New Millennium, an exciting development in an age when it often seems like there’s no new design ground to be trodden. Not to say that old standbys were completely thrown out; wire rims and rimless frames have remained reliable and fashionable alternatives to trendier plastic and retro fare, an understated way of making a statement by NOT making one. Indeed, Googling “Walter White,” the villain protagonist of AMC network’s legendary “Breaking Bad,” brings up “Walter White eyeglasses” as the fourth result, showing that Heisenberg’s gold-rimmed ’90s specs are still in hot demand. (If anyone could figure out whose they are! And speaking of AMC, could the unanticipated renewal and cult success of the nerd epic “Halt and Catch Fire” be a harbinger of the return of the wire-rimmed aviator as a frame of choice for young men? Tune in next year…)
It’s all very wonderful: Not just for eyecare providers, but for men themselves, who finally have a way to definitively define the way they’re perceived. After all, while beautifully tailored suits may give a temporary air of elegance and a sleek car might make a man the king of the road, these are but fleeting accoutrements; something that stays on the face for the majority of a man’s day, though? What better way to reshape one’s identity to one’s own specifications? When a man wants to hide his identity, he covers his face; when he wants to alter his identity, he wears glasses; and what’s so amazing is that with the choices available, he can become anyone he wants to be.
Want to look smarter and enjoy professional success? Dr. Helmut Leder of the University of Vienna has conclusively demonstrated that men wearing rimless glasses are perceived as smarter than non-bespectacled men or men wearing different types of glasses, while the College of Optometrists found that those in rimless specs are believed to be more professional and better at business. Want to have a successful date night? The University of British Columbia found that men who appear to be brooding or sad are perceived by women as more desirable; and what better way to appear fierce and moody than by accentuating the brow, an affect achieved with bold frames and, of course, browlines. Want to look more rugged and take-charge? Try a pair of more angular frames, which will serve to accentuate and square off the jaw—which the University of Glasgow found makes men appear more dominant. Heck, Charles University in Prague even found that men with larger eyes are perceived as more trustworthy—put on a smallish pair of frames to accentuate their size! No matter what perception a man wants to project, the look is his to own with one simple modification: A pair of the right shape, size and style of eyeglasses.
The effects aren’t just being felt by the gents, either. Almost as if in response to the sudden attention that the fellas are paying to their eyewear, women’s frames have also become more diverse than ever. Consider for the past 30 years, men’s fashion has often been thought of as an adjunct to women’s; look at any wedding photo from 1990 to today and gape in amazement at how the groomsmen have been turned into living accessories, their matching $19.99 vests chosen for the sole purpose of coordinating with the beautifully tailored, elegantly designed gowns worn by the bridesmaids. With men reasserting themselves as fashion plates, women are now freer to let their own colors fly: 2014 was truly a rainbow year for ladies’ frames, with red, blue and purple all popping up as popular (and acceptable) alternatives to the standard blacks and tortoises. Which brings me around to this year’s Guywear forecast: Look to 2015 to be a year where men dip their toes into the chroma well themselves. They tested the waters this year with navy and olive slowly creeping into mainstream acceptance; look for those colors to proliferate in the next year, with perhaps a few more following suit. (Hey—Lyndon B. Johnson wore yellow frames. If he can do it, so can you!)
The coming of 2015 signals the midsection of the 2010s, the point in most eras when the aesthetics of the previous decade have had time to fade away and allow for the emergence of a new identity (consider that the first part of the ’80s was a ’70s hangover, and the early ’90s was an extended attempt to say goodbye to the ’80s). With eyewear playing such a large part in defining the aesthetics of our age, I’ll be fascinated to return here in 2015 for another Guywear retrospective: to see how men have taken the initiative to define the look of an era and more importantly, define THEMSELVES.
