I Was Embarrassed to Wear Dorky Glasses — Gen Z Craves Them
As teen in the aughts, I made every attempt to avoid wearing my prescription glasses. I was convinced that they were a tragically uncool faux pas; better to squint myself into headaches than risk being called Dwight Schrute, or so I thought.
I don't think anyone actually noticed whenever I was forced to put on my glasses for the sake of actually seeing the whiteboard, in hindsight, but I still made every effort to distance myself from those crappy, thin-rimmed nightmares like some sort of Bizarro World Velma.
As a full-time glasses-wearer nearly 20 years later (and they look good, thanks!!), I'm mildly amused that conventionally attractive Gen Z people are willingly wearing dorky glasses for fashion's sake. In fairness, they pull them off better than I ever did.
The recent rise of thin-rimmed glasses is an extension of the ongoing fascination with the Y2K aesthetic, which makes sense: slight frames were the style at the time, right up there with giant T-shirts and backwards hats à la Fred Durst.
Indeed, my first pair of glasses, the ones I pretended to lose just so I wouldn't have to wear them, were wireframes.
From the runways of Tom Ford's Gucci to the down south countrified Oakleys, thin-rim was in (much to my chagrin).
You can really thank (or blame) Miu Miu for crystalizing today's dorky eyewear trend.
Yep, designer Miuccia Prada didn't just once again inflict low-rise everything upon modern society, she also reintroduced nerdy glasses as a styling prop, which in turn inspired a swath of imitators — that's the power of being the coolest brand on the planet.
Slight, sporty sunglasses were already pretty on-trend, mind you, but the dweeby optical frames are a new wrinkle.
The movement became a proper trend once streetstyle all-star Bella Hadid became the patron saint of dorky glasses.
Hadid was way ahead of the curve on this one, to be fair. Hadid was tapped to model Miu Miu's Spring/Summer 2022 and 2023 collections, which put her on the ground floor of non-prescription geek glasses.
Note that she didn't wear the Miu Miu glasses on the runway. Instead, Hadid's been frequently street-styled wearing dweeb-tier glasses, the epitome of the Y2K gal with her Big Pants, Tiny Top and Dad Shoes.
And wherever Bella goes, the high street follows.
It's not just the much-maligned square wireframes of my youth that're of the moment, though: so long as the glasses are as wimpy as the nasally waifs who wore them in afterschool specials.
Because these frames are accessories, not necessities (the glasses, they do nothing!), the only thing that matters is the shape.
While quintessentially "chic" sunglasses have some chunk, a recognizable logo, and/or at least enough lens to cover the eye, today's dorky glasses are puny, both in heft and lens size.
We're not talking oversized '70s geek-wear here; less Napoleon Dynamite, more Hackers.
Dorky glasses affect an air of bookishness.
They've historically been worn by outsiders: Enid Coleslaw in Ghost World, Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man, Daria, R. Crumb.
Cultural weirdos wear dork glasses; I was frantically attempting to distance myself from that crowd.
Meanwhile, Miu Miu, Bella Hadid, and subsequent influencer adopters lean hard into it, contrasting their dweebish eyewear against clothes that radiate self-confidence: tight cardigans, crop tops, low-rise skirts.
It's like the "sexy librarian" trope gone fashionable, a Halloween getup worn in earnest.
It's costumey to be sure — these glasses do not improve anyone's vision — but that's part of the fun, I suppose. I mean, must be nice to be able to see just fine without them...
But far be it for me to gatekeep glasses.
After all, the adoption of these incredibly uncool specs as legitimately cool accessories is at least partially indicative of the fact that we've moved on from stigmatizing glasses, right?
If only it could've happened a couple decades earlier.
