On... an ode to my glasses

I am reclaiming my glasses.


This isn't the pair I'm talking about. Not exactly. Mine are more or less the same shape, but bigger and clunkier. I bought The Glasses about five years ago in a little old man's glasses shop in Hong Kong. The man got so excited that I liked such out-of-date frames that he promptly ran to the basement and fetched an box of ancient specs bearing 'Made in West Germany' tags. But I didn't want them, I wanted the big black clunky ones. I wanted The Glasses.

After he fitted the lenses, I went home and showed my parents. Their immediate reaction was "why do you want to look like a blonde, female Buddy Holly?" I don't know. I just did.

For months I'd been thinking 'I wish I could have glasses like Michael Caine in the Ipcress File, only bigger'. I searched and searched and searched, and then, like all truly blessed sartorial findings, they finally turned up. A gift from the gods. And I loved them.

They were comfortingly heavy and sat firmly on my face (lightweight ones fly off if you jerk your head around or guffaw with gusto, which I guess I do a lot). They didn't lose their shape, leave a mark on my nose or tangle in my hair when I put them on my head, like wireframes always do. And most of all, they went with everything. They looked amazing with old holey jeans and new tiny dresses, with a (fake) tan or red lipstick, hair up or down. I thought - probably mistakenly but I'm okay with that - that they gave a polished sheen to everything I wore: they were a look.

And then The Glasses became fashionable.

Really fashionable. People around Shoreditch and Bethnal Green started wearing them. Chloe goddamn Sevigny got a pair. Tom Ford designed a pair. I saw a cafe in Notting Hill with no fewer than nine people in it all wearing The Glasses. They were featured in a magazine as 'geek chic'. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutchter had matching pairs, for the love of betsy. The Glasses were absogoddamnlutely everywhere.

I was nonplussed, but tried to shrug it off. It wouldn't affect me. I wear what I wear. Who cares, right? I didn't buy them to be fashionable or unfashionable, I bought them because I loved them.

And then I met a girl wearing The Glasses, but without any prescription. Just plain plastic lenses. As an accessory, like earrings. To get the look. And I thought 'I can't handle this, I'm a clone'. So I put The Glasses away and switched to wearing contacts full time. (I'm shortsighted - not severely, just -2.00 in each eye.) No other glasses would ever take their place. I saw my sister mewing like a blind baby bunny after laser surgery and swore I'd never do it, so I decided that I'd just wear contacts forever.

I just found The Glasses in a drawer. It's been about 18 months since I wore them. They slide so nicely onto my face. They haven't changed a bit: they're still perfect. So I'm going to start wearing The Glasses again. I can't help it: I love them and I always will.


This is Buddy Holly wearing The Glasses. What a groovy hipster!


This is Michael Caine wearing The Glasses. Woofwoof.