Why are people in their 50s+ all wearing big chunky glasses frames?

January 27, 2023 9:20 AM

Why are people in their 50s and 60s all wearing big chunky black glasses?

I work with a lot of 50+ professionals. I feel like everyone but me has big black frame glasses. I missed the memo. Other than "it's a fad" and "there's no accounting for taste" - is there a specific reason that older-ish people are wearing these? Are they supposed to make you look younger? Distract from your aging face? Do I look like a fogey because I do not have the age-reducing power of these frames? This seems to be more of a 50+ thing than a younger person style thing? Is this just a me thing or have others noticed this?

posted by Mid to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (70 answers total)

A couple of potential reasons:

This is a style that was more popular a decade or two ago, when these professionals were much younger and probably more interested in fashion overall.

It's also a relatively timeless look, being a 'classic' style. Buddy Holly wore them, and I've worn them too.

Also, bigger frames are often a necessity or at least a good idea as aging eyes require thicker, larger lenses, progressive lenses, etc. This doesn't mean they have to be black, mind you.

This may also be related to your field? I work with a fair number of professionals in that age range and while they're more likely than their younger peers to wear glasses overall, and those glasses are a bit more likely to be 'classic' types like black and tortoiseshell, I don't feel like "everyone" does so. Industries often have specific fashion trends within them compared to the larger world, like how a lot of architects continue to wear bow ties despite them becoming extremely rare in men's fashion overall.
posted by Tomorrowful at 9:27 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I know what look you’re talking about. As a somewhat younger person (early 30s) I associate the super chunky glasses with more hip, fashionable or artsy older folks. I don’t think it’s about looking young, it’s just the trend for a certain set. I do think older women can often pull off “louder” aesthetics than younger ones.

I think they look cool, personally. You should keep wearing whatever glasses you think look cool.
posted by vanitas at 9:28 AM on January 27, 2023 [17 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks, Tomorrowful, those are good points. One point I should have mentioned - I am mainly reacting to people who recently got the big black frames, i.e., not people who have worn them for a decade or two. Like, these are people who had rimless glasses or other styles a few years ago, but have switched to the big black thing (as they have gotten older).
posted by Mid at 9:30 AM on January 27, 2023

Having big frames makes progressive lenses more effective -- when your lenses are larger, the zones for the different strengths are larger. Although my frames aren't black, I've definitely shifted more and more to larger lenses as the "up close" strength of my prescription has increased.
posted by OrangeDisk at 9:34 AM on January 27, 2023 [18 favorites]

I'm in my early 50s and I wear the type of glasses to which you're probably referring.

I just like the style. I especially love all the colors. I probably lean towards this style because I associate old-fashioned with silver or gold wire rimmed glasses.
posted by jraz at 9:36 AM on January 27, 2023 [13 favorites]

It's a fashion and trend thing. I'm a late 40s woman who wears contacts and glasses, and I've seen this a lot in the past year or two especially. Honestly, I had thought this was a case of older folks mimicking a trend among younger people. My kid (a stylish 20 year old) suggested I get chunkier frames when I was looking at new frames recently.

Are you around a lot of younger folks wearing glasses? I don't think this is exclusive to this age cohort.

It may be the case that people around 50 have more disposable income to replace frames and also may be changing prescriptions as we newly need glasses for both distance and reading. So more people this age are wearing glasses in general than in younger age groups.

I might also speculate that working from home means that glasses are one of the few places where you can be visibly trendy on Zoom, and perhaps the bolder frames contrast more with the masks that some folks are still wearing.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:43 AM on January 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

To specifically answer your question about if it's supposed to make you look young: only because it's a trend popular among younger folks, too, and lots of people my age are very worried about looking old and dated.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:44 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Once you need bifocals rimless is not an option due to the thickness of the glasses. I changed from rimless to more solid (although not black) because i had to. (Age 57).
posted by 15L06 at 9:48 AM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

And here's an article from last spring in the New York Times, highlighting glasses styles at various fashion weeks. There are photos and most glasses are oversized and chunky. Eyeglasses can be as trendy as anything else we wear.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:50 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Maybe they are cheap cheater reading glasses that you notice now more over zoom meetings where we old folks need them vs when we used to sit in the office and not have them on for meetings and only wore them at our desk?
posted by cmm at 9:50 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I am in this demographic, and although I have not succumbed to this trend I have considered it enough that I think I can comment.

-It is indeed a trend. I feel like it started or was jump-started by Iris Apfel about 15 years ago and has gradually gone mainstream.
-Aging faces lose definition. Your jawline softens, your lashes and brows thin, your hair color softens. Glasses can do something to offset this or at least distract from it. This is not the same thing as trying to look younger, though. I think we're all well aware that this is an older-person thing.
-Zoom, definitely. I spend hours a day comparing my frames to other people's frames and analyzing what might look better on me. Before Covid I just made do with drugstore readers and didn't GAF.
posted by HotToddy at 9:56 AM on January 27, 2023 [22 favorites]

Are they supposed to make you look younger? Distract from your aging face?

Interesting that that's your first guess. Perhaps they are just disguising their superpowers.
posted by headnsouth at 9:57 AM on January 27, 2023 [28 favorites]

Steps in to do the "beCAUSE we CAN" dance for a minute.

Honestly, it's younger hipster women's embrace of the Big Glasses that finally allowed me to return to the beloved giant frames of my 80s youth (yes I wore Sally Jesse Raphael glasses, in purple thank you very much) since they're available everywhere in a million styles. It is no longer entirely "fashion" for me, I just want ALLLLL the field of vision - I don't go to movies anymore but they did let me get the whole screen in my glasses above my bifocals, and I suppose they serve the same purpose for giant TVs and also the entire windshield in a car. Also I have an absolutely enormous noggin, so those glasses that look like dinner plates on the willowy girls mostly just look proportionate on me.

I love giant glasses unreservedly, and I suppose I do think of them as part of a younger aesthetic though possibly my cohort is ruining it for everyone. And while many of my peers have gone for the bright-colored versions to suit their Toddler Grandma aesthetic, mine is more Elder Pajama Goth and so I usually go for the darker, tortoiseshell, or tiny patterns, but I still grab the occasional red or yellow or extremely unnatural tortie options.

In summary, many of us left all our fucks in our 40s and now we wear what we want - for all our reasons - rather than what we think makes us look young or fear will make us look old.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:59 AM on January 27, 2023 [45 favorites]

I wish you had included a picture but a data point is that big chunky basic black frames are one of the cheapest frames if not the cheapest on zenny.
posted by simmering octagon at 10:00 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

When you're not wearing them and are mostly blind, the big black things are still easier to find than some sort of rimless or thin thing. Simple.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:03 AM on January 27, 2023 [11 favorites]

I'm actually noticing, on my standard "ginormous" search on eyebuydirect, the trends seem to be tipping heavily to giant wireframe glasses now, along with the chunky plastics.

I own a pair of those too and actually think they do look cool on me (although they're rose gold wire, probably no longer cool?), and I am probably terribly mistaken but I care much more about what I think than what anyone else does.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:06 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm in that demographic and have always loved big chunky glasses. I love them now even more because they give my face definition on Zoom calls so I can go without much makeup and not look totally washed out. I'm allergic to various metals so don't want to risk wire frames.

"Looking younger" is not much of a consideration, at least among my group of friends, but looking healthy and alert is more of a factor.
posted by rpfields at 10:20 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

There’s something about this that is ageist. Even the answers presume that older people are behind or failing or trying to be younger. Can people of any age embrace trends—or be wrong about trends? Yes, they can. They all can. And do.
posted by marimeko at 10:22 AM on January 27, 2023 [40 favorites]

Actually what I noticed was that there was a ripple of bigger plastic (often big but slightly cat-eye) among fashionable younger femme people before the pandemic. These aren't buddy holly glasses like were fashionable in about, oh, 2008 that are sort of a riff on the Rayban shape.

Then that sort of died away among trendy young people in favor of bigger wire frames but picked up among middle aged people and mixed in the buddy holly frames with the cat eye ones, so you see both. There were also a couple of artsy middle aged women celebrities (Lea Delaria, for instance) who had a lot of visibility before the pandemic who wear big chunky glasses.

I do think the zoom effect is a big part of it too.

So it's not "it was popular ten years ago the last time they were into fashion" or even "these were fashionable with younger people and then the Olds started wearing them", it's more that there were a bunch of trends swirling around that coalesced into this specific trend for middle aged people.

There are a lot of Gen Z big chunky really colorful plastic frames if you look on Zenni. Big round wireframes seem to be in still but are on the way out - smaller, more horizonal 90s frames are what's next, I think.
posted by Frowner at 10:28 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

My main glasses are similar to these. Progressives.

My computer glasses are big chunky glasses. More room to see out of. Also reminds me of the glasses I wore in high school (late 80s). Nostalgia. They are brownish

I hate my progressives for reading, so planning on another pair of big chunky glasses as readers. These ones will be brightly coloured. So I can easily tell them apart.
posted by Ftsqg at 10:30 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

There’s something about this that is ageist. Even the answers presume that older people are behind or failing or trying to be younger. Can people of any age embrace trends—or be wrong about trends? Yes, they can. They all can. And do.

My take on this is that some folks, in their 30s, see a younger generation with new trends and find it stressful and threatening because they are confronted by the fact that they're no longer the young, cool generation in a culture that venerates youth (see, "I'll never give up my skinny jeans" and every other millennial criticism of Gen Z fashion), but, by the time you are in your late 40s, you've been through a few cycles of this and feel more comfortable embracing new trends or at least you've already had to accept you're not the young generation anymore.

This is among the set that isn't super focused or aware of fashion trends in the big picture (like me), not among folks who always keep up with the latest.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:33 AM on January 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

My chunky frames weren't black, but they were definitely chunky for two different, practical reasons:

1) With progressive lenses, "taller" frames are better because the zones can be taller. This was pointed out above, but it's a very real thing. My first couple pairs of progressive glasses weren't very tall and the reading area was TINY. With modern progressive lenses, the in-focus area is kind of hourglass shaped, with a narrow transition between two larger zones. With shorter frames, I found that most of the useful height of the lens was dedicated to the transition, with the reading zone basically pushed up against the bottom edge of the frame, and distant objects requiring me to peer through the tops of my glasses. I hated it. Intentionally picking taller frames made it easier to "fit" a comfortable progressive lens into the frame as worn.

2) I used to prefer wire frames to thicker frames, but that exposed a lot of edge from my thick lenses. It was attention grabbing in a bad way. Moving intentionally to a chunkier frame meant that the edge that stood out was designed (the frame) and not just a function of my strong prescription. It meant that people said "cool glasses" instead of reacting to how strong my prescription was.

[Before an optometrist steps in to point this out: yes, many progressive lenses come in so-called "short" versions with compact transition areas that will fit in frames with reduced height; I'm not sure if my original progressive lenses were "short" or just badly fitted regular lenses that should have been "short", but I found that I liked things better when I intentionally chose taller frames and gave the lens design more room to do its thing.]
posted by fedward at 10:36 AM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm in my 50's but have been wearing big black frames since my 20's - I just prefer them and they go well with an all-black, very minimalist wardrobe.
posted by remembrancer at 10:38 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Because they’re still Gen X indie kids at heart and read Ghost World and watched Daria Morgendorfer at formative ages?
posted by momus_window at 10:48 AM on January 27, 2023 [18 favorites]

Also Iris Apfel is having (yet) another moment, and as always she is rocking it.
posted by Mchelly at 10:52 AM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

My friend considers these the height of 1960s fashion, after seeing them in movies like Fahrenheit 451.

I got some big plastic-black frames at Costco for my new prescription last year because I don't care anymore. Actually I have even older, clunkier black-plastic (very similar to the Ray-Ban Wayfarer) which I wear when I want to exaggerate what I call my Clark Kent look. But those aren't bi-focal and I avoid wearing either because they're uncomfortable; my default are those with the metal frames we call wire-rims.
posted by Rash at 10:58 AM on January 27, 2023

My friend wears them, she's white-haired, maybe 60, and an artist. I've seen a number of women with similar glasses. There may be a certain If I'm gonna wear glasses, I'll go for it approach, and Iris Apfel is def. a style icon. I'm in my 60s, love round 'schoolboy', clear frames, though they are impossible to find when they fall off my head outdoors.
posted by theora55 at 11:16 AM on January 27, 2023

Hang on, are we talking about Jeff Goldblum glasses? For the dudes, the answer may just be that they are in fact Jeff Goldblum glasses.
posted by eschatfische at 11:19 AM on January 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

GenX woman here.. Multiple factors!

My prescription is so heavy that plastic frames are far better than wire frames with the nose piece thingies.

Vooglam, Zenni, and other sites make it super fun to buy different colors and styles that I never would have considered when I was younger because glasses used to cost, like, $700 a pair.

I have settled into a personal fashion style that is relatively basic and neutral-color-based, and adding a big pop of color is fun.

Big chunky glasses and a swipe of lipstick is SO MUCH EASIER than putting in my contacts and doing a full face of makeup some days.

They look great on Zoom meetings.

During the height of the pandemic, I noticed the younger generations shopping in Target wearing big chunky fun-colored glasses on their masked faces and I was like damn, we can just like do that now? Like those giant silly sunglasses we used to wear in the 90s sometimes are just totally normal as glasses now? I'm gonna try that!

posted by erst at 11:20 AM on January 27, 2023 [15 favorites]

Chunky big frames in in-style over all, for all ages groups. At least from what I have noticed. The big frames popular in the 80s came back in style and I see a lot of people in their 20s wearing them. Maybe you just work with a lot of hip people.
posted by bearette at 11:24 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm younger and have always loved how they look. A couple of my ex-boyfriends, both artists/designers, had them when we were in our 20s...One of them had light coloring and the black frames made his face look more defined. I agree with someone above who mentioned that eyebrows and lashes can look less defined when people are older, and the glasses can also help with that.
posted by pinochiette at 11:28 AM on January 27, 2023

It sounds like nobody has been in an optician’s lately. That’s about all there is—giant frames. When I went in April to get new glasses, there were hardly any smaller frames. Not all are black but you’ll probably find more inexpensive ones that way; mine are giant very beautiful translucent blue and a pair of tortoiseshell, but they’re both much bigger than the last ones I got five years ago. The optician told me that they probably won’t even have anything narrower coming up for quite a few years.

Also, yeah, this feels really ageist and gross.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:42 AM on January 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

GenXer here as well though slightly younger than the group you're talking about, and I've recently moved to big chunky frames (not black ones). Reasons include:

* Yep, I'm in progressives now and the more screen real estate my eyes have, the better
* I'm fully at an age, and also have enough professional reputation and social capital now, that I can do whatever the hell I want with my appearance more than when I was a young woman struggling to be taken seriously. I no longer care about whether I look professional, I can just wear whatever is fun for me.
* I have decided that "Your Lesbian Art Teacher From Junior High", as I call my current chunky blue-and-purple frames, is what is fun for me. (That probably is purely an age thing - I imagine junior high lesbian art teachers wear different styles now so I'm probably not pushing the right semiotic buttons for people of different ages, but that's okay, that's not who I do my fashion signalling for anyway.)
* My plastic frames are so much less fiddly than my wire frames - the nose pads are easier to keep clean, fewer hinges to lose screws from, and they feel much lighter on my face. I have one pair of wire frames now and they're so annoying compared to my last couple of plastic pairs that I've pretty much sworn off anything but plastic frames ever again for any future purchases. So I'll probably be in chunky glasses forever, or at least until they go so far out of style again that I can't find them.
posted by Stacey at 11:59 AM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

Welp, found the person who doesn't have a bad eye prescription. My glasses are like double digits or right there I think, so I need large frames to hide how huge the lenses are. They still extend.

I don't have a choice.

If you want to tell if someone has a high prescription, look at how small or big their eyes are behind the glasses. I'm nearsighted (can't see far) so my eyes are very tiny. If I was farsighted, my glasses would amplify my eyes and surrounding face behind the lenses.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:00 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

There’s something about this that is ageist. Even the answers presume that older people are behind or failing or trying to be younger. Can people of any age embrace trends—or be wrong about trends? Yes, they can. They all can. And do.

> It sounds like nobody has been in an optician’s lately. That’s about all there is—giant frames. When I went in April to get new glasses, there were hardly any smaller frames.

This is how I remember it, though it might not be accurate: Around 15 years ago, give or take a few, rimless frames and glasses with super thin rims were popular with young people; it felt like a reaction against the huge unflattering frames that were the main thing being sold in the '80s and '90s, back when wearing glasses was a nerdy and undesirable thing to do. Then around 5-10 years later I started hearing younger people describing rimless frames as being for "old people", who I guess started adopting them a little later than the younger cohort. (Here's an example from around the time I think perceptions were starting to change.) I think age groups keep reacting to and against each other; I'm curious if the trend of older age groups wearing the big chunky style means that in a few years barely-visible glasses are going to be back on trend for younger age groups.
posted by trig at 12:02 PM on January 27, 2023

GenX here.

My current frames are these, the blue variant (though I'm just a little sad I didn't go for the red ones). Big, check, chunky, check, black, no but there is a black variant.

Lots of already-mentioned reasons apply to me too, but there's one thing I haven't seen mentioned: freakin' MASKS. I mask at work, including when I teach in-person, and these frames add some character and recognizability to my half-a-remaining-face.

The tops of them also align with my eyebrows, which are (despite my advancing years) thick and black. I never was and never will be anybody's pinup, but the correct alignment does improve how I look just a bit.
posted by humbug at 12:47 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also, I do want to chime in and say the question as framed was pretty ageist. "Distract from your aging face?" Really? There was definitely a way to ask this question without commentary on the presumed desires of middle aged folks to look younger.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:51 PM on January 27, 2023 [27 favorites]

I need [x frames-related thing] to hide [x lenses-related thing].
Yes.

I decided I wanted glasses like Stephen Colbert's glasses, which were rimless, so I ordered some off the internet and when I put them on I immediately noticed my eyes looked very tiny and my face was dented in at the edges where the glasses were and I realized that all along my frames had been compensating for my pinprick shrunken eyes given to me by my massive thick lenses from being so nearsighted. So I sadly put the brand new rimless glasses away.

This was a great many years ago before I needed bifocals. Now I have some Warby Parkers that I got in the actual store because I happened to be in Cambridge. I picked the frames that didn't make me look insane. I just checked and they're "Upton." Apparently. I have to go back and re-up my Rx because it's getting hard to see the computer screen again. And I have to get new lenses and new frames and it's probably going to cost a damn planet. I guarantee I am not trying to look like Buddy Holly and I am paying zero attention to trends, just getting whatever is available for the least amount of money that doesn't make me look like an insect.

I wish everybody would stop ascribing a whole philosophy to my sartorial "choices" because they aren't even choices most of the time in any meaningful way. Is it available? Can I afford it? Does it avoid sucking in some overwhelmingly obstreperous way? Awesome, then I "choose" it. I had those weird wider-than-tall glasses that every single glasses-wearing person had in the early days of the online glasses availability, too. Did I "choose" them? I did not. They were what was there and they were like $7, so they were what I had.

In grad school I had a messenger bag because it was new at the thrift store and I put all my stuff in it and dragged it everywhere and a well-meaning friend considered it awful and decided I didn't carry a backpack like everybody trend-conscious else because the stupid thriftstore messenger bag had to have been a "choice," so she got me an upgraded messenger bag that probably cost who knows fifty dollars because it was all BRAND APPROPRIATE so although it was exactly as hideous as the previous messenger bag, I transferred all my crap into it and showed up at seminars with it and she nodded, satisfied.

OMG, I DoN't cArE, GOD DAMN.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:01 PM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

I am in my 50s. This means I was a teen in the 80s, the peak era for perceived coolness of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses. So when I needed to get glasses a few years ago, I was like, might as well get me some Wayfarer frames -- because that shit is still cool. They also really suit my overall look with very close-cropped hair.
posted by fikri at 1:04 PM on January 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

It sounds like nobody has been in an optician’s lately. That’s about all there is—giant frames. When I went in April to get new glasses, there were hardly any smaller frames.

Exactly. The vast majority of options for the last few years have been chunky plastic. I used to be able to easily find a narrow titanium frame. Very difficult now.
posted by fies at 1:11 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

But to fikri's point, if you're my age even if you're mostly "omg-I-don't-care-goddamn," it's possible that somewhere in the back of your brain you might also a little bit want to have "those Wayfarers on."
posted by Don Pepino at 1:12 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I, also a Gen X person, am pathologically picky about my glasses, so while it isn't wise to assume that people definitely care a lot, some among us are total clothes horses.

Another thing - the big cat's eye frames hark back to late nineties frames, which pushes a lot of nostalgia buttons. The 90s ones were smaller and more horizontal, but there are a lot of similarities in terms of color, texture and chunkiness. I had a series of cat's eye frames in my salad days from about 1997 - 2002, and although for some reason I have zero desire to revisit my nineties glasses, I have definitely been revisiting other elements of my nineties wardrobe.

Rayban-type frames are are classic, though. One of the few designs that you could wear pretty much any time since it was created and look completely appropriate.

If you are looking for a nice Rayban-esque frame made in the US, may I suggest the Shuron Freeway? A mid-priced frame that comes in a variety of neutral shades, a large range of sizes and they tend to be available through, like eyeglasses dot com, etc. Back around in the 2005-2012 years I had several nice pairs of those and the Shuron Ronsirs and was really happy with them.
posted by Frowner at 1:18 PM on January 27, 2023

My sister never wore glasses her whole life and then when she finally actually needed them she got Glasses. Not glasses. Capital-G Glasses.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:34 PM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

It's a fashion phase and I personally blame/attribute/stan Stanley Tucci.
posted by blackjack514 at 1:47 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I am 54 and I just got these. I used to wear pretty simple tortoiseshell glasses and would've gotten those again, but the optician strongly suggested them ⁠— and wasn't sure at first but when I tried them on, I liked them! So maybe some of it is sales people pushing them on older people?
posted by Lescha at 2:01 PM on January 27, 2023

The thin metal frames that are in with the young people remind me of the glasses I got in 1996, when I was ready for a classic look (I was…19?) and then by the time I was 25 they looked hopelessly dorky to me. I love to see them on other people but seeing them on myself I just feel awkward and outdated.

Also, it’s a style that is popular with a lot of ages. Smaller frames tend to read more “older” because that’s who wears them — like most fashion things it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:05 PM on January 27, 2023

I was thrilled when chunky statement glasses became fashionable over the past decade, and I got glasses I actually liked wearing, and could wear contact lenses less.

Personally I’m worried that peak chunky glasses has already passed. I see younger people not only wearing more wireframe glasses, but also the plastic frames seem to be moving to lighter, more transparent colours. And obviously trends percolate out from young fashionable people to the rest of us.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 2:06 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

My spouse (56yo woman) shifted to the big chunky glasses from thinner wire frames a year or so ago because she thought they'd be more durable. She'd broken the earpieces on the wire ones more often than she liked, even with the flexible spring hinges. Seems to be working so far.
posted by dlugoczaj at 2:15 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also, yeah, this feels really ageist and gross.

Oh, good grief. I'm in the demographic this question refers to (50+, and a wearer of retro black-framed glasses that some might consider "chunky"), and don't feel that it's ageist at all. The questioner seems sincere in simply wanting to understand a trend they've observed among a certain age group.

And while I'm not wearing my glasses to try to look younger, some older people certainly do make style choices for that reason.

Let's not go out of our way to take offense.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:21 PM on January 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

Because they’re in style.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 2:25 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

It might also be more visible to you in this demographic as essentially everyone aged over 50 will need at least reading glasses. And, thinking about it, for a big chunk of those people, these are probably the first pairs of glasses they've ever chosen.
posted by plonkee at 2:37 PM on January 27, 2023

I never wore glasses in my life, suddenly in middle age i have to pay to look at things. If I'm gonna have to wear glasses i am gonna wear GLASSES!
posted by Iteki at 2:38 PM on January 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

The round wire frames coming back into style remind me of the fugly glasses I had in the 90s. They made my face look weird and droopy. God I hated those things. Rectangular frames are a much better shape on my face and are most often available in chunky plastic.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 3:25 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm 46 and have a lot of thicker, large, acrylic framed glasses but must admit the pair I just got in last week are these. Never thought I'd like a wire frame, much less a round-ish shape but I like how much easier it is to see my eyes, they don't feel as dark and sunken in and hidden.

I wonder if a lot of it is companies like Warby Parker, Zenni, etc. becoming completely mainstream (I mean Zenni is a sponsor of the Chicago Bulls) and making it super easy to get new glasses, as well as newer online eyewear companies like TIJN and Zeelool that advertise HEAVILY on Instagram.

But yeah, agreeing with a lot of the others that as you get older the fucks get fewer and the urge to embrace your inner hippie/art teacher/eccentric fashionista grows stronger. Chunky/ "interesting" glasses are a major signifier for that.
posted by misskaz at 4:00 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't. :D I wear Gunnars, those metal "gamer" glasses.
posted by kschang at 6:37 PM on January 27, 2023

lord all the comments about how you "have to" wear certain frame styles if you have bad enough eyesight to require actual lenses, what a sad and sorrowful sight to see. you can wear whatever kind of frames you think look good. you have to argue with the optician if you want rimless as was popular 20 yrs ago instead of ugly thick plastic as was popular 15 yrs ago, but if you are old enough an argument before lunch is invigorating. presumably anybody who is terrified of letting their terrible eyesight show is either wearing contacts instead or, if they can't, wearing nothing and walking into lampposts all day. fine choices both.

when the edge of your face appears to jump two inches inwards right where your glasses start, that's not because your lenses are too big. it's because your glasses are real and not fake. that's how they work. whatever generation it was was told that it is embarrassing to have anyone See that you have real spectacles on, you are all at liberty to stop being embarrassed. unless you enjoy it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:40 PM on January 27, 2023

I am an Old, and when I got new glasses last year, I went into the eyeglasses shop where the optician is (vs my usual Costco). I tried on and fell in love with these (slightly different color-way, but substantively the same).
I’ve never had chunky glasses, but these are so comfortable, I hope they last 10 years!
posted by dbmcd at 7:35 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

There is a certain age where your vision suddenly changes and your close range vision starts to go and your distance vision may improve. That age is between about 41 and 60, with the low end of the fifties showing the most change.

Prior to this age you can often go five years or so without needing new glasses. But at that particular age you end up squinting and cursing a lot. It's hard to deal with the vision changes without getting glasses. For many people it is glasses for the first time. For habitual glasses wearers it's a big change in the prescription.

Worse yet because your vision goes through this process over a period of months you may need to get a new prescription less than a year later.

This means that if you are in your early fifties you are more likely to be shelling out money for brand new glasses. Younger people can get away with wearing the same pair they were using before Covid started. Older people not so much.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:55 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

After watching Sarah Palin get praised over for her stupid rimless glasses I wanted to get the absolute furthest thing from that, which happens to be giant chunky frames.

Plus, I've finally achieved distinguished midlife Italian gentleman status and I can afford accessories for once in my life and I want to wear the goddamn uniform, thank you very much, of which an integral part is the chunky glasses. At least in my version of it.

Seriously though, I think the style is coming around, and fifty-somethings have transitioned well into the "I don't give a fuck" phase of their lives and are embracing said trend with gusto. Plus we need readers, many of which are chunky-rimmed. Also once you notice it, you see it everywhere.
posted by niicholas at 8:08 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Good Grief, dbmcd, Neez Dutz, those are crazy, I love 'em!
posted by Rash at 8:37 PM on January 27, 2023

It does make people look younger, and it is a cool looking style. And it does cover up eye bags and such from what I’ve seen (ageing faces are not a crime and fuck policing of women’s faces especially). Those frames just look fun and aesthetically pleasing to a lot of people, and the opposite of delicate, dated wire frames (which are coming back around and I hate it.)
posted by asimplemouse at 5:02 AM on January 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

The archetypal classic black frames: Marcello Mastroianni's glasses in Fellini's 8 1/2.
posted by remembrancer at 5:30 AM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m in my late 40s. I switched from wire frames to chunky frames last fall. It had been about 5 years since I last got new frames, and as others have said:
- I have a pretty strong prescription had to get my first progressive lenses. I was told they wouldn’t work well in my narrowish wire frames.
- Chunky frames are mostly what’s available right now.

I haven’t seen anyone mention the possible impact of Zoom/Teams/etc. When someone’s wearing chunky framed glasses, it’s obvious they’re wearing glasses even in a tiny video pane. With wire frames you just get the impression that there’s *something* on their face. Chunky frames look better to me than wire frames in a Zoom meeting (probably because they require my brain to do less processing). I’m in a lot of remote meetings, so that probably impacts my impression that chunky frames look better in general. The trend started pre-pandemic, but I think everything going virtual gave it even more steam.
posted by Kriesa at 7:05 AM on January 28, 2023

Response by poster: Good thoughts, everyone. I'm especially interested in the progressives explanation and the Zoom explanation, of course supplemented by "that's just the current style." I was thinking more about men when I asked the question, but I had not realized that the big chunky frames are possibly more of a thing for women.

FWIW, I am in the age group I was asking about and I was joking a little bit about the "de-age your face" stuff - I'm talking about my own demographic. Of course being a member of a group is not license to say any mean thing about that group, but a little in-group ribbing is also allowed. I understand YMMV on where the line between the two lies.
posted by Mid at 8:45 AM on January 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

I have worn chunky black glasses with a large lens area for 20ish years because:

I wear trifocals (not progressives--those give me motion sickness well beyond any "break-in" period)
I am a pasty white woman with white hair who doesn't wear makeup much and the glasses give my face some definition so I look less ghostly.
posted by agatha_magatha at 9:11 AM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I was thinking more about men when I asked the question

For men, I think Big Glasses really did take a big leap in fashionableness, which equals availability, especially with the birth of the online cheap glasses market. As a big-headed glasses-wearer all my life, I've always noticed men's glasses options in brick-and-mortar retail opticians have had a fraction of the wall space dedicated to the entire stock, often even smaller than the children's glasses sections. Men were allowed The Five Eyeglass Frames, plus maybe two very expensive sunglasses and one cheap knockoff, and that was it.

I think Warby Parker aggressively podvertising to younger white guys really did change the landscape, giving many men their first opportunity/incentive to glasses-shop somewhere other than Lenscrafters, Costco, or Walmart.

But my husband was just the other day saying he wanted a pair of giant glasses for computer work, because of a huge monitor and also "maybe easier to find? If they were bright red or something?" so I think men have also caught up to the general convenience of big glasses.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:24 AM on January 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

as a late-40 something who is kinda doing this: eponysterical?
posted by lalochezia at 12:41 PM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

They are the fashion, but I prefer them for their convenience (durable, findable!) and often they are cheaper. I no longer break or lose my glasses with anything like the frequency of the more delicate frames. Most of all, they are not apologizing for existing and as such have a subtext I can get behind.
posted by Coaticass at 1:32 PM on January 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

FWIW, I am in the age group I was asking about and I was joking a little bit about the "de-age your face" stuff - I'm talking about my own demographic. Of course being a member of a group is not license to say any mean thing about that group, but a little in-group ribbing is also allowed.

Thanks for mentioning this, and I do think it's absolutely relevant! I don't love ageist comments, whether in-group or out-group, but I did not get the sense from the question that you were also part of this cohort of people. I appreciate you clarifying.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:26 AM on January 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Data point:

I've shopped, basically exclusively, at zenni for more than a decade.

Based on this thread, I decided to branch out: Both Eyebuydirect and Zeelool had interesting styles which were better and different than zenni in some way, and the optical performance - to my eyes - is identical. Eyebuy direct was maybe 50% more expensive than zenni, zeelool was comparable.

Zeelool in particular had some nice chunky things. I recommend both!
posted by lalochezia at 10:06 AM on February 14, 2023