A-Rod, Karl Lagerfeld and Ryan Gosling are not the OGs (original gangsters) of fashionable eyewear. True “focal” heroes come from every profession and era. So, let’s give credit where it’s due in our Hall of Frame.
Well-rounded eyeglasses
Benjamin Franklin: One of our country’s founding fathers got there first. Physicist, inventor, printer, author, humorist, activist.
Mahatma Gandhi: The nonviolent Indian activist never let his wire-rims and white robes get in the way of his message.
John Lennon: Unlike the Beatles' music, Lennon was heavy into metal when it came to men’s eyeglasses.
Harry Potter: The schoolboy hero of British author J.K. Rowling’s best-selling novels and films cast a spell with his bookish specs.
Takashi Murakami: Japanese pop artist Murakami’s barely visible wire rims don’t get in the way of his collaboration with rapper Kid Cudi.
Creatively expressive specs
Elton John: The pop performer outshone flashy oldster Liberace by going for baroque with carved gold, rhinestone-encrusted, feather-trimmed, heart-shaped frames. Who else would wear glasses looking like scissors, topped with gnomes or with windshield wipers?
Dame Edna Everage: Australian comedian Barry Humphries birthed Everage in 1955. Ever since she’s donned “face furniture” with sky-high bejeweled cat-eyes that often match her lilac tresses.
Bono: U2’s lead singer tends to wear showy wraparound shields with brown lenses due to glaucoma.
Sir Winston Churchill: A true trendsetter, Britain’s prime minister during WWII was unexpectedly adventurous in tortoiseshell round-eyes and triangular half-eyes — decades before supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid.
Men in black frames
Buddy Holly: Though the ‘50s rocker died in a plane crash at age 22, he hasn't faded away, mostly because of his tunes and partly because of his trademark thick black rectangular eyeglasses.
Peter Sellers: The comedian was fond of his weighty black square glasses.
Martin Scorsese: This director has built his empire on the streets of New York. But visually he’s best known for a warm smile and standout rectangular glasses with chunky temples that balance out his bulbous nose.
Alber Elbaz: This fashion designer knew the secret to specs: balance. For him, that meant rectangular lenses and hefty glass arms to counter his full face.
Orville Redenbacher: The popcorn king proved it’s poppycock that you need to vary your look. He traded on his printed bow-ties and suspenders, silver wavy locks and black glasses.
Influential men: Back to basics
Bill Gates: He is one of the world’s most wealthy philanthropists who used to wear a pair of rimless eyeglasses. Now, he wears acrylic rectangular frames of black or tortoiseshell.
Steve Jobs: The late tech guru created clever, sleek computers starting in 1976. But like Gates, he rarely deviated from an uninventive uniform: his black mock turtlenecks, jeans and rimless oval glasses.
Malcolm X: The ‘50s and ‘60s civil rights activist also wore browline eyeglasses, seen again more recently on popular TV shows.
Eyeglasses that make the man
Colonel Sanders: Since the fast-food chain opened in 1952, this frontman’s black-temple/clear-bottomed square glasses have been as omnipresent as his western bow tie and goatee.
Clark Kent: This superhero’s disguise was the ultimate square: suits, ties and black full-rimmed rectangular glasses. Somehow the local archvillains and spectators became blind to his chiseled chin and physique.
Albert Einstein: The German-born physicist and Nobel Prize winner was best known for his massive mind and unkempt mane, but the genius also wore clear round plastic frames that hung low, as if he couldn’t be bothered to get them fitted.
Stephen Colbert: This host so consistently wore wireless frames that he announced in a social media post his switch to square glasses in 2016.
Ed Sheeran: The English singer-songwriter skews intellectual, thanks to his shaggy red hair and the shape of his glasses — mostly round-bottomed, sometimes rectangular, almost always dark, skinny acrylic rims.
Wire-frame guys
Franz Schubert: The early 19th century Viennese classical composer of religious masses wore mini oval wire-rims.
Elvis Presley: The rocker had fans all shook up starting in the ‘50s, but later his burning love was for gold-rimmed double-bridge aviators and studded white jumpsuits.
Jerry Garcia: While the singer-songwriter is forever linked to trippy tie-dye, he actually wore plain baggy black T-shirts and wire aviator glasses.
Monocles and more
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A 19th-century poet with a wealthy pedigree? Then of course, a monocle would be the perfect accessory.
Eustace Tilley: The fictional aristocrat has continued to resurface in the 90+ years since, with his monocle, high collar and even higher top hat — no matter what the news cycle delivers.
Mr. Peanut: It could drive you nuts wondering why a shell of a character dons one lens, a top hat and tie yet lets his suit jacket expose his belly.
Lord Peter Wimsey: Since 1923, author Dorothy L. Sayers’ top sleuth — considered the first British gentleman detective — always has behaved appropriately, no matter how dastardly the crimes he solved. He’s since appeared in a film and TV series.
The Penguin: As a rich comic-strip villain introduced in 1941, he’s one-eye-glassed.
Sir Patrick Moore: A single lens added to his Renaissance man aura and served as a reminder of his noble pedigree, as Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore. Despite his death in 2012, we remain starry-eyed.
