It's Fashion Friday!: Protect Your Peepers

           I might have a bit of a sunglasses acquisition issue. They’re such a fun thing to buy. An easy way to give a hint of something new to your appearance. An easy way to hide the squint you’re making at that person who has no idea what they’re talking about. AND they are medically necessary to PROTECT your beautiful peepers from those harmful glorious rays of light raining down from that magnificent ball of gas in the sky. 

       

The Original Wayfarer
in one of their "Rare Prints"
$165

     While particular styles may go in and out of trend, I really believe sunglasses are one area of fashion where people can do what they damn well please. The only guideline is that you attempt to do something that goes well with the shape and color of your face. A lot of fun is out there to be had! There are some standards we all know and love. The Wayfarer by Ray Ban is an older style that has resurfaced with “hipster cool.” Contrary to the belief of everyone living in Park Slope, this is NOT a universally flattering style. They are available in a wide variety of colors, however, so you may be able to find a pair that works for you. I had a pair. I don’t know if I ever showed you their demise, or told you about it, but a quick recap – picture my large, wrapped in a size 11 Saucony sneaker foot, eagerly reaching to make a sticky contact with the floor so I could hold a forearm plank, and instead landing smack in the middle of the lens of my Wayfarers. The SOUND! OH. I think it was as if the whole world was silent and all I could hear was shatter-crunching.

These are fun! Prada 'Baroque' will leave you
broke - $290 at Nordstrom.



            The beautiful thing about Ray Bans, and any other designer sunglass made by Luxottica Group, is that they can be sent back to them for repairs. And let me tell you, that is a good thing, because this is not a company whose quality I would bank on. Let me rephrase that. Luxottica’s proprietary brands, such as Ray Ban and Persol, are fine. Luxottica’s licensed brands, which would be a huge helping of your designer eyewear: Prada, D&G, Chanel, Ferragamo, Versace, anything you can buy at Lenscrafters… not so great. The most recent pair of eyeglasses (we all know how much those cost) I purchased actually started to flake at the temples – not a happy girl. Anyways, I will be sending back my Ray Bans with a request for assistance – I’ll let you know how that goes. The extra helpful people at Lenscrafters told me it would be cheaper to just buy a brand new pair. I don’t think so.

Mmmm. McQueen. $340.

             Safilo Group is the other designer eyewear licensing monster. They handle the accounts of Dior, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Saint Laurent, and Marc Jacobs, among others. I recently acquired a pair of My Lady Dior’s in honor of my friend Janice. Janice got herself a beautiful Lady Dior handbag while we were working together at Anthropologie and now we can match. I am already excited by the improvement in quality of these glasses over those by Luxottica. I had noticed a piece on the temple was a bit loose the other day, you know how sometimes you can wiggle the joint between the front frame and the side up and down and back and forth? It was easily tightened with a jeweler’s screwdriver and on a cheaper pair of frames it would most likely have been glued. 

            Enough shop talk. The bottom line is, as long as the sunglasses you purchase are

Floral Square Frames. $5.80!! Now THAT'S
my price range. Forever21.

100% UV Protection, you are good to go! I tend to also prefer my sunglasses to be without nose pieces as I also use mine to keep the hair out of my face when I go indoors, and those little things get caught in hair. It's pretty embarrassing to have your sunglasses dangling from the side of your head when you want them on your nose. I say it’s good to have at least one really nice pair that you take good care of, and then have a bunch of cheap ones to put in every purse, in the car, in the kitchen, in your gym bag, anywhere you might find yourself squinting. TJ Maxx is a great place to get cheap sunglasses AND cheaper good sunglasses. Department store outlets are also great places to get cheaper good sunglasses. I tend to want to pay less as mine always seem to meet an untimely end. My favorite pair of purple Missoni sunglasses? My boss from hell THREW THEM AWAY. And then she lied about it. Pretended she knew nothing. It was the moment she told me “You know what? I want to buy you a new pair of sunglasses. I just feel so bad that your sunglasses went missing,” that gave her away. That was before she knew they were Missoni. I never told her I got them at TJ Maxx. I let her think that I paid hundreds of dollars for them. She was a horrible person.

       

There's always the vintage route.
$18.90 on Etsy.

     Before that, I had the one pair of Armani sunglasses I paid full price for. I had purchased them with my brother, at his encouragement. I loved them to death. They actually had a long life, before I forgot that I had taken them off and put them in my lap while I was driving. I then got out of the car. They fell onto the pavement. AND I STEPPED ON THEM. They were a wrap around style, very delicate, sort of frameless. And then they were a patterned style. Made everything look like spider webs.

            The moral of this story is to deck out your face with fun frames. Don’t spend to much. Buy what you like. If you can take care of it, go ahead and invest! If not, keep it cheap and don’t get too attached. Check out this lady!