Sunglasses that work well with a Fedora?

[Hurricane Jack]

OK, I am sooooo easily influenced HJ.

They look great on you with that hat Rick! Glad to hear that you think so too & continue to look for another vintage pair of aviators. They definitely add to a vintage look.

By the way, I have a ROLOX Precedent watch for sale that would really look great on your wrist.

 

[GHT]

Robert @GHT & I are founding members of VALES, the Vintage Aviator Lens Extreme Society.

What an honour Jack, there's one pair of spectacles that I bought at a vintage festival and had them fitted with my own prescription. The first time they got an airing was when dining out with friends and everyone was saying: "You look like what's his name?" Nobody could remember the character portrayed by Ronald Lacey in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. "Major Arnold Toht," I informed them.
They are not sun glasses of course, but they do give the black fedora an air of menace.

 

[Edward]

I went for many years without owning any actual sunglasses. Without prescriptions lenses I can see well enough to bumble my way around, but it's a pest and I couldn't really enjoy something like the cinema to the full extent - I'd be able to see the picture, but it'd be 'soft-focus' and lacking in the sort of detail that makes the cinema worth paying for...

Around 2007, I was planning to have my eyes lasered and so I picked up a few pairs of decent sunglasses, which I still have around somewhere (All Raybans; the wife mostly wears them now). Plans changed as my eyesight improved a little. I'd been using sunglasses a lot when I wore contacts. Originally bought contacts for costume usage (particularly during my Rocky Horror shadow casting days; teetering around a dark cinema in six inch heels, I really needed my full vision), and for a bit had fallen into wearing them regularly. Around the time my eyesight improved, I also discovered glasses I actually liked, and so I've barely worn the contacts since. The sunglasses went by the wayside, as I was back to having at least one pair of glasses which had a photochromic tint, which darkens and lightens in reaction to the sun. From the age of 16, all my glasses had been like that, though I do usually now have a pair or two that are clear lenses just because I like them that way. My first pair of prescription sunglasses came along a few years ago for little reason other than that the optician I used was offering a twofer, and I didn't see any glasses other than the first pair I picked that I actually liked. I rather surprised myself with the amount of wear I got out of them, and plan to pick up another pair or two in future.

TL/DR, based on my above experience, these are my thoughts on sunglasses with a fedora and/or the look we favour in these parts:

1] Rayban Wayfarers - a great casual shape, though mix with a fedora with care if you are sensitive to Blues Brothers references being made by passers-by. Oddly, tortoise-shell colour frames get less of this; most folks don't seem to notice that's what Jake Blues / John Belushi wore... For a 50s look, I'm rather fond of the rounder-variation on this shape that Johnny Depp often wears:

I like what he does with lens colours: this blue looks good; a lilac-purple tint also looks great with tortoiseshell.

I have a pair in this general vein from Specsavers - wish they'd do more of them in more varied colours:

Not the best photo, alas, but the only one I seem to have of me wearing them....

2] Browlines - Shuron developed this style in 1947 as the Ronsir model; I have had a few pairs of these now, still in production, and they are great. Rayban sell their version as the Clubmaster. Tip: I was once advised by my optician not to pay out for Raybans if I was going to have prescription lenses put in them: in his view, the quality of the lens is the lion's share of the cost of a pair, so it's a waste to buy them and then junk the lenses for rx ones.

I think browlines look great for a post-war look. Definitely archetypal for 50s & 60s; in the US for almost those entire two decades, around 50% of glasses frames sold were browline style. I like how they sit a little less heavy on the face than a Wayfarer can do. Bonus ball: if you need a prescription lens, some opticians won't do more than a couple of changes on an all-plastic frame, but something where you screw or unscrew it to hold the lens is fine.

Shuron Ronsirs:

Specsavers' own-brand version:

The Shurons again:

3] Pre-war styles. I have a pair of these with clear glass:

These are mine, they work quite well in the vintagey context, despite being 'modern':

While mine are clear lensed, I think these would also work well with a tint to them.

I'm also planning to at some point pick up a couple of Civil War era styles, like this:

I fancy some with very dark tinted lenses, perhaps lilac or blue. Great for a bit of an 1880s to anywhere up to the 30s look, imo. This saddle style bridge gradually became less common from, as memory serves, the later 20s when nosepads were first seen on spectacles.

4] Aviators. This is a style I disliked for a long time, until I discovered the secret: it's all about the lens shape. I don't care for a teardrop shape per the USAAF originals; I think the over-sized teardrops of the 70s soured me on it. That and some spectacles of that style I had in the mid-eighties which weren't the best look on me. I have discovered I like them with slightly smaller, rounder lenses. A sort of anachronism, but more of a pre-war look I think:

I think these look good with a brimmed hat too:

All done and said, I tend to find that sunglasses are much like any other accessory: a surefire way to make them look "right" with a fedora or such is to take style cues from what they might have been worn with in a particular period. My rule of themb is smaller and rounder for pre-war, and browlines or similar post-war.

 

[Short Balding Guy]

I went for many years without owning any actual sunglasses. Without prescriptions lenses I can see well enough to bumble my way around, but it's a pest and I couldn't really enjoy something like the cinema to the full extent - I'd be able to see the picture, but it'd be 'soft-focus' and lacking in the sort of detail that makes the cinema worth paying for...

Around 2007, I was planning to have my eyes lasered and so I picked up a few pairs of decent sunglasses, which I still have around somewhere (All Raybans; the wife mostly wears them now). Plans changed as my eyesight improved a little. I'd been using sunglasses a lot when I wore contacts. Originally bought contacts for costume usage (particularly during my Rocky Horror shadow casting days; teetering around a dark cinema in six inch heels, I really needed my full vision), and for a bit had fallen into wearing them regularly. Around the time my eyesight improved, I also discovered glasses I actually liked, and so I've barely worn the contacts since. The sunglasses went by the wayside, as I was back to having at least one pair of glasses which had a photochromic tint, which darkens and lightens in reaction to the sun. From the age of 16, all my glasses had been like that, though I do usually now have a pair or two that are clear lenses just because I like them that way. My first pair of prescription sunglasses came along a few years ago for little reason other than that the optician I used was offering a twofer, and I didn't see any glasses other than the first pair I picked that I actually liked. I rather surprised myself with the amount of wear I got out of them, and plan to pick up another pair or two in future.

TL/DR, based on my above experience, these are my thoughts on sunglasses with a fedora and/or the look we favour in these parts:

1] Rayban Wayfarers - a great casual shape, though mix with a fedora with care if you are sensitive to Blues Brothers references being made by passers-by. Oddly, tortoise-shell colour frames get less of this; most folks don't seem to notice that's what Jake Blues / John Belushi wore... For a 50s look, I'm rather fond of the rounder-variation on this shape that Johnny Depp often wears:

I like what he does with lens colours: this blue looks good; a lilac-purple tint also looks great with tortoiseshell.

I have a pair in this general vein from Specsavers - wish they'd do more of them in more varied colours:

Not the best photo, alas, but the only one I seem to have of me wearing them....

2] Browlines - Shuron developed this style in 1947 as the Ronsir model; I have had a few pairs of these now, still in production, and they are great. Rayban sell their version as the Clubmaster. Tip: I was once advised by my optician not to pay out for Raybans if I was going to have prescription lenses put in them: in his view, the quality of the lens is the lion's share of the cost of a pair, so it's a waste to buy them and then junk the lenses for rx ones.

I think browlines look great for a post-war look. Definitely archetypal for 50s & 60s; in the US for almost those entire two decades, around 50% of glasses frames sold were browline style. I like how they sit a little less heavy on the face than a Wayfarer can do. Bonus ball: if you need a prescription lens, some opticians won't do more than a couple of changes on an all-plastic frame, but something where you screw or unscrew it to hold the lens is fine.

Shuron Ronsirs:

Specsavers' own-brand version:

The Shurons again:

3] Pre-war styles. I have a pair of these with clear glass:

These are mine, they work quite well in the vintagey context, despite being 'modern':

While mine are clear lensed, I think these would also work well with a tint to them.

I'm also planning to at some point pick up a couple of Civil War era styles, like this:

I fancy some with very dark tinted lenses, perhaps lilac or blue. Great for a bit of an 1880s to anywhere up to the 30s look, imo. This saddle style bridge gradually became less common from, as memory serves, the later 20s when nosepads were first seen on spectacles.

4] Aviators. This is a style I disliked for a long time, until I discovered the secret: it's all about the lens shape. I don't care for a teardrop shape per the USAAF originals; I think the over-sized teardrops of the 70s soured me on it. That and some spectacles of that style I had in the mid-eighties which weren't the best look on me. I have discovered I like them with slightly smaller, rounder lenses. A sort of anachronism, but more of a pre-war look I think:

I think these look good with a brimmed hat too:

All done and said, I tend to find that sunglasses are much like any other accessory: a surefire way to make them look "right" with a fedora or such is to take style cues from what they might have been worn with in a particular period. My rule of themb is smaller and rounder for pre-war, and browlines or similar post-war.

Excellent post Edward. I like the way that you have broken down the accessory, sunglasses. The post war glasses are my fav style as I now recognize that is mostly the style influence of the clothes that I wear in public. BTW: The Johnny Depp, Moscot Lemtosch's are the influence of my glasses.

Cheers, Eric -

 

[GHT]

Excellent post Edward. I like the way that you have broken down the accessory, sunglasses. The post war glasses are my fav style as I now recognize that is mostly the style influence of the clothes that I wear in public. BTW: The Johnny Depp, Moscot Lemtosch's are the influence of my glasses.

Cheers, Eric -

Quite so Eric, Edward does do a great post. "Teetering around in six inch heels," the image that conjurs up!

 

[Edward]

Thanks, gents!

Quite so Eric, Edward does do a great post. "Teetering around in six inch heels," the image that conjurs up!

I'm told even video of that exists, but probably best it never hits the public domain!

 

[Hurricane Jack]

I bought some NOS aviator frames in gold & silver a while back. No cables & not as extreme shaped as I like but they are 1970's Rx L'uomo (Italian) frames.

 

[MisplacedHillbilly]

I went for many years without owning any actual sunglasses. Without prescriptions lenses I can see well enough to bumble my way around, but it's a pest and I couldn't really enjoy something like the cinema to the full extent - I'd be able to see the picture, but it'd be 'soft-focus' and lacking in the sort of detail that makes the cinema worth paying for...

Around 2007, I was planning to have my eyes lasered and so I picked up a few pairs of decent sunglasses, which I still have around somewhere (All Raybans; the wife mostly wears them now). Plans changed as my eyesight improved a little. I'd been using sunglasses a lot when I wore contacts. Originally bought contacts for costume usage (particularly during my Rocky Horror shadow casting days; teetering around a dark cinema in six inch heels, I really needed my full vision), and for a bit had fallen into wearing them regularly. Around the time my eyesight improved, I also discovered glasses I actually liked, and so I've barely worn the contacts since. The sunglasses went by the wayside, as I was back to having at least one pair of glasses which had a photochromic tint, which darkens and lightens in reaction to the sun. From the age of 16, all my glasses had been like that, though I do usually now have a pair or two that are clear lenses just because I like them that way. My first pair of prescription sunglasses came along a few years ago for little reason other than that the optician I used was offering a twofer, and I didn't see any glasses other than the first pair I picked that I actually liked. I rather surprised myself with the amount of wear I got out of them, and plan to pick up another pair or two in future.

TL/DR, based on my above experience, these are my thoughts on sunglasses with a fedora and/or the look we favour in these parts:

1] Rayban Wayfarers - a great casual shape, though mix with a fedora with care if you are sensitive to Blues Brothers references being made by passers-by. Oddly, tortoise-shell colour frames get less of this; most folks don't seem to notice that's what Jake Blues / John Belushi wore... For a 50s look, I'm rather fond of the rounder-variation on this shape that Johnny Depp often wears:

I like what he does with lens colours: this blue looks good; a lilac-purple tint also looks great with tortoiseshell.

I have a pair in this general vein from Specsavers - wish they'd do more of them in more varied colours:

Not the best photo, alas, but the only one I seem to have of me wearing them....

2] Browlines - Shuron developed this style in 1947 as the Ronsir model; I have had a few pairs of these now, still in production, and they are great. Rayban sell their version as the Clubmaster. Tip: I was once advised by my optician not to pay out for Raybans if I was going to have prescription lenses put in them: in his view, the quality of the lens is the lion's share of the cost of a pair, so it's a waste to buy them and then junk the lenses for rx ones.

I think browlines look great for a post-war look. Definitely archetypal for 50s & 60s; in the US for almost those entire two decades, around 50% of glasses frames sold were browline style. I like how they sit a little less heavy on the face than a Wayfarer can do. Bonus ball: if you need a prescription lens, some opticians won't do more than a couple of changes on an all-plastic frame, but something where you screw or unscrew it to hold the lens is fine.

Shuron Ronsirs:

Specsavers' own-brand version:

The Shurons again:

3] Pre-war styles. I have a pair of these with clear glass:

These are mine, they work quite well in the vintagey context, despite being 'modern':

While mine are clear lensed, I think these would also work well with a tint to them.

I'm also planning to at some point pick up a couple of Civil War era styles, like this:

I fancy some with very dark tinted lenses, perhaps lilac or blue. Great for a bit of an 1880s to anywhere up to the 30s look, imo. This saddle style bridge gradually became less common from, as memory serves, the later 20s when nosepads were first seen on spectacles.

4] Aviators. This is a style I disliked for a long time, until I discovered the secret: it's all about the lens shape. I don't care for a teardrop shape per the USAAF originals; I think the over-sized teardrops of the 70s soured me on it. That and some spectacles of that style I had in the mid-eighties which weren't the best look on me. I have discovered I like them with slightly smaller, rounder lenses. A sort of anachronism, but more of a pre-war look I think:

I think these look good with a brimmed hat too:

All done and said, I tend to find that sunglasses are much like any other accessory: a surefire way to make them look "right" with a fedora or such is to take style cues from what they might have been worn with in a particular period. My rule of themb is smaller and rounder for pre-war, and browlines or similar post-war.

Great post! I especially like the ones in the bottom 2 pics. I've worn glasses 30 years now, since age 13. A couple years ago I started wearing contacts mostly to be able to wear sunglasses I liked. A 3 months ago I needed a new pair of glasses because I had bacteria trying to eat a hole in my cornea! No contacts until it healed. I bought a budget $99 package deal because they was only going to be backups to contacts. I picked these out specifically because they had a retro wayfarer vibe.

 

[Edward]

The post war glasses are my fav style as I now recognize that is mostly the style influence of the clothes that I wear in public.

I lean that way much of the time myself. I seem (especially when 'faking' it with affordable, contemporary stuff that isn't vintage repro per se but has close echoes of it) to gravitate towards something approximating a fifties vibe, so the browlines work well for that. Only thing thing they looked a bit 'off' with in my wardrobe is white tie... which I suppose as a style was more or less dead by 1947!

Great post! I especially like the ones in the bottom 2 pics. I've worn glasses 30 years now, since age 13. A couple years ago I started wearing contacts mostly to be able to wear sunglasses I liked. A 3 months ago I needed a new pair of glasses because I had bacteria trying to eat a hole in my cornea! No contacts until it healed. I bought a budget $99 package deal because they was only going to be backups to contacts. I picked these out specifically because they had a retro wayfarer vibe. View attachment 385656

Thanks, yeah - those are Specsavers (UK High Street chain opticians) own brand, which I think I bought in late 2015 / early 2016. Very nice to wear all day when outside in the sun. The plus side of a prescription full tint sunglass I have found is that it can be darker in Summer: apparently, the way the photochromic lenses work is thermal, with the result that they won't get to full darkness in hot weather, and to a certain extent are better for Winter sun as they will get darker then. Something to do with more pronounced temperature changes when you step outside from inside, if memory serves. For those of us in the UK, Specsavers can come up trumps at times with vintage-look frames, though it can be hit and miss as their collections changes year on year and they do follow mainstream fashion.

Your new pair do nod to the later 50s and on Wayfarer styles; this general style has been big in the UK for the last several years. It reminds me a touch of some of the acetate frames the NHS did in the UK. The NHS started producing affordable, well-made spectacle frames from the early days in 1948, and carried on right up until 1985/6. When I was getting my first couple of pairs of glasses in 1984-86ish, they were free for kids, and a minimal charge for adults. There was also the option of paying privately for fancier frames, though the lenses were often NHS-provided still at a cheaper price / free. The NHS glasses over time did develop a bit of a stigma, and didn't keep up with fashion. In 1986, the scheme was shut down, and replaced with vouchers that would cover lenses plus more affordable frames - and, of course, money can be added by those who wish to go for something pricier. I recall my pairs being very much like this:

Robust and practical. By the mid eighties they were the butt of much humour, but a couple of decades later inevitably fashion changed, and you can now spend a significant amount of money buying either a vintage pair like this, or some designer equivalents... These also made a great basis for sunglasses frames, in which context the echo of the Wayfarer style becomes even stronger.

 

[T Jones]

Prescription Ray Ban, New Wayfarers. The hat is one of my conversions, a gray Resistol Stagecoach...

 

[Zombie_61]

...I think browlines look great for a post-war look. Definitely archetypal for 50s & 60s; in the US for almost those entire two decades, around 50% of glasses frames sold were browline style. I like how they sit a little less heavy on the face than a Wayfarer can do...

Did someone say Browlines?

I agree.

 

[T Jones]

He's not wearing a hat of any kind, but this is George Saunders sporting a nice pair of Aviators from the 1953 movie, "Journey to Italy". What I like about his glasses is that they go well with his face shape.

 

[quikrick]

By the way, I have a ROLOX Precedent watch for sale that would really look great on your wrist.

HaHa! I said easily influenced not easily scammed.
BTW, I already have one of those... picked it up a couple of summers ago down in Cabo! Along with a pair of Roy Bans!

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Along with a pair of Roy Bans!

Ha ha! Out of town on the job yrs ago I was running down a row of bars one night in an entertainment district, one after another & all with catchy names. I came to about the fifth or sixth one in a row, & I stumbled into a soup kitchen having a prayer service before the street people got their meal. I quickly stumbled back outside, looked up at the name of the place & it was "The All Souls Inn".

 

[Rmccamey]

OK, I am sooooo easily influenced HJ.
After your post @Hurricane Jack , I immediately went on the hunt for some aviators with the extra nose bridge thingy, and I'm looking for more.

Looking good, Rick, but I'm thinking you need to try the Wayfarer look.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

These would look great for that vintage look.

 

[quikrick]

At the recommendation of @Hurricane Jack I bought these aviators on a hasty whim. There is no name or brand anywhere to be found. They do have the sweat bar and wire ear holders. They seem a bit small for my big face though, I'm used to the big modern Ray Bans. Pics are from a few different angels

 

[Hurricane Jack]

View attachment 418798 View attachment 418799 View attachment 418800
At the recommendation of @Hurricane Jack I bought these aviators on a hasty whim. There is no name or brand anywhere to be found. They do have the sweat bar and wire ear holders. They seem a bit small for my big face though, I'm used to the big modern Ray Bans. Pics are from a few different angels

They look good, Rick. Especially with the hat for a more vintage era look. They can fit small by today's profile.

 

[Bamaboots]

View attachment 418798 View attachment 418799 View attachment 418800
At the recommendation of @Hurricane Jack I bought these aviators on a hasty whim. There is no name or brand anywhere to be found. They do have the sweat bar and wire ear holders. They seem a bit small for my big face though, I'm used to the big modern Ray Bans. Pics are from a few different angels

Look good to me, Rick

 

[Zombie_61]

View attachment 418798
At the recommendation of @Hurricane Jack I bought these aviators on a hasty whim. There is no name or brand anywhere to be found. They do have the sweat bar and wire ear holders. They seem a bit small for my big face though, I'm used to the big modern Ray Bans. Pics are from a few different angels

I have to agree with @Hurricane Jack and @Bamaboots--those sunglasses complement you without being absurdly oversized like a lot of "aviator" style sunglasses have become over the years; the rounded shape of the lenses suits you very well, and they pair with that hat nicely.