Designer glasses have come into their own in recent years with names like Gucci, Hugo Boss, Prada, Tommy Hilfiger or YSL being seen in most opticians’ windows.What exactly qualifies glasses to bear the label “designer”?Perhaps it’s the provenance of the name itself and a long association with the world of couture and the fashion industry.
Prada glasses are highly esteemed by opticians and fashionistas alike, but this iconic Italian brand established its fashion credentials over several decades through producing leather goods and expanding into haute couture and vintage style clothing and accessories.Perhaps to gain the appellation “designer” it’s not a case of who made them, but rather who wears them? Celebrity and the modern media can arguably take a pair of cheap glasses and smother them in celebrity kudos that will elevate them to the status of “designer” overnight. Celebrity endorsement can certainly make things trendy.John Lennon was instantly recognisable partially thanks to his round lens coloured Windsor style that are now much more commonly referred to as a “Lennon”. However, these glasses could just as easily been called after Groucho Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, or Joseph Stalin, – they all wore the same style but none of them of course were alive in a time of mass media and a burgeoning youth market.
There’s no doubt that established reputation and some catwalk credibility certainly helps to gain the accolade of your products being labellled “designer”.Prada and indeed Dolce & Gabbana had alreday established themselves in fashion and haute couture before they even contemplated going anywhere near glasses frames.But to qualify as a designer product ultimately, there must be a designer behind the product in the first place.That could mean the inspired creation of a talented and dedicated individual, such as Raymond Stegeman, the optical designer responsible for the classic 1952 Ray Bans Wayfarer sunglass shape, or the collective team work of an entire studio full of anonymous, but equally creative, people.