The Celebrity Power of Designer Glasses Glasses can make the man (or woman!). Designer glasses have come into their own in recent years with names like Gucci, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Prada, Tommy Hilfiger or YSL being seen in most opticians’ windows. But often it’s the other way round.Sophia Loren, who now has her own range of designer glasses bearing her name, was once a Foster Grant girl, at least for sunglasses.She was the mainstay in the “Who’s That Behind Those Foster Grants?” advertising campaign (voted among the best 100 campaigns ever) along with Raquel Welch and Mia Farrow John Lennon was indistinguishable from the round lens Windsor style. First introduced as far back as 1880, the iconic round lens (in a variety of colours), nose saddle with no nose pads and temples that loop behind the ear became a “must have” and is now much more commonly referred to as a “Lennon”.That’s unfair.They could just as easily been called after Ernest Hemingway, Groucho Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, or Joseph Stalin – although a pair of Groucho’s does sound rather better than a pair of Stalin’s. n comedy, the two Ronnies are the perfect example.Messer’s Corbett’s and Barker’s horn rims were all the logo the show needed. Where would Harry Hill be without his ludicrous glasses and would he really be able to convincingly deliver stupid lines like; “I have a really nice stepladder. Sadly, I never knew my real ladder.” without them? Surely the most cringingly corporate, sickeningly sycophantic and ultimately naff designer glasses were Steve Wozniak’s, then of Apple Computers, who went so far as to have Apple -shaped glasses made for him. Steve Jobs didn’t like them much obviously. Some celebrity designer glasses are not intended to boost ego and effect, but to improve performance.The best example of this must be snooker player Dennis Taylor’s famous glasses, designed by Jack Karnehm, better known as BBC TV’s snooker commentator from 1978 to 1993. Having served a five-year spectacle-making apprenticeship, he developed Taylor’s distinctive, swivel-lens, upside-down design. Those designer glasses helped Taylor win the 1985 world snooker title and made him seem almost exotic into the bargain! No contest – the most unusual celebrity designer glasses belonged to Eric Sykes. A comedy genius and excellent writer, Sykes was never seen without his black horn rims.But that was due to the fact that he became profoundly deaf as an adult.The glasses he wore were actually a bone-conducting hearing aid and contained no lenses at all. Designer glasses, what celebrity are yours?
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