When the older black (or brown) horn-rimmed frames went out of style. But even those weren’t considered “ugly” – they just hid your true beauty (so once they were removed, everyone would notice).
The small frames in vogue now look pretty good to me, on both men and women. I’m almost sorry I had my eyes lasered six years ago.
Well, not really. Before I had it done I couldn’t find my way to my own bathroom without my glasses.
You know the set up of “nerdy bespectacled librarian type whips off glasses and shakes down a head full of lustrous hair and becomes your personal sex slave” repeated in everything from cheap porn to shampoo commercials? It could be that iconic image that made people suspect that behind every pair of glasses lurks a lustpuppy, hence glasses became cool.
Or it’s because this is the “cool” smiley and we’re more influential than we thought!
:: checks ::
Yup.
:: plans next visit to library, etc ::
I’d agree with that time frame. The late 60s are when I remember first seeing wire rim glasses. The two major varieties were small “granny glasses” and big three-inch diameter lenses. The latter were THE look for fashion-concious glasses wearing women through most of the 1970s.
It happened when folks who did not need perscription lens started to buy glasses with no prescription lens , in the belief that people who wore glasses were deemed to be more inteligent that the 20/20 types .
Not that we are more inteligent , but glasses do give some what of an academic look.
Declan
Back in the late 80’s through the 90’s I don’t think I ever had a pair of glasses I really liked. When it came time for a school picture, I’d take them off. Knowing that the moment I moved out of my house, I was going to get contacts. (My dad refused to even think about it.) I didn’t have monogrammed ones, but I did that the ones that the arm started low and ended high. As well as a brief stint with bi-focals that made me want to cry. (I was 15 at the time.)
Well it took me a few years to get contacts, and I prefer them over my glasses now, but the last set of frames I got was in 2001ish and they are Eddie Bauer and they are the rectangle ones. When I do wear them, people compliment me.
The Husband is going to have to get glasses soon, and I’m looking into Buddy Holly type frames. Perhaps even horn rimmed frames like Bennet from Heros. That style on men has always appealed to me.
Is it really that more people need glasses nowdays or that more people are diagnosed as needing glasses and actually get them?
This was a big part of the problem. Those gigantic 1980’s-style glasses didn’t look good on anyone. More modern glasses are smaller and are scaled to people’s faces much better. For that matter, many older glasses were smaller and better-looking as well. It seems like the 80’s were a uniquely bad time to have poor eyesight.
So the consensus is that glasses stopped being ugly when glasses stopped being ugly? 
Did John Lennon, perchance, have anything to do with this?
The year 1969 in basic training, the Army gave me a pair of BCGs (Birth Control Glasses) . . . They were Buddy Holly dark plastic rims. the name came from them being so ugly that you ain’t gonna get laid while wearing them.
I could finally see clearly out of both eyes but they were too ugly to wear. Then later I went on the civilian market and bought a pair of round wire rims and actually would wear them. I have worn the same style to the present day except for about 2 years when I used a single contact lens (I only needed one).
No, I didn’t kill John Lennon just because he copied my glasses.
It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Whatever the reason, more people are supposed to wear glasses now and because they’re so widespread they lose a lot of their dorkiness.
Actually, upon more thought, the question is wrong.
Glasses were never ugly. Do you think people would choose glasses that made them look ugly? That manufacturers would think they could sell them if they made people look ugly? That manufacturers wouldn’t realize that if they made glasses that people thought were attractive, they’d sell more?
What happened is that styles changed and the older styles now look out of date and would be ugly if worn today (which is why the older styles aren’t made today).
Take a look at those 1950s rhinestone glasses (the one with the oval shapes). To our eyes, they look pretty goofy and ugly. But back in 1950, they were considered stylish and pretty and women would wear them and not only like the way they looked, but would also be complemented by others about the way they looked.
The same for 60’s granny glasses. You’d say anyone wearing them today looked goofy, but they were very stylish back then.
In 50 years, people will look at our current styles of glasses and ask the same question – Why did they wear those ugly metal things when horn rims look so much better?
That would be crazy. You became John Lennon by wearing the glasses. But nobody would believe you while the pervert was carrying on with the banshee.