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The Celebrity Power of Designer Glasses
Glasses can make the man (or woman!).Designer glasses have come into their own in recent years with names like Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Prada, or Tommy Hilfiger being seen in most opticians’ windows.  But often it’s the other way round.  Sophia Loren, who now has her own range of designer glasses bearing her name, was once more associated with Foster Grant,   at least for sunglasses.She was featured in the “Who’s That Behind Those Foster Grants?” advertising campaign along with Raquel Welch and Mia Farrow
John Lennon was synonymous with the round lens Windsor style.  First introduced as far back as 1880, the iconic round lens (in a variety of colours), nose saddle with no nose pads and temples that loop behind the ear became a “must have” and is now much more commonly referred to as a “Lennon”.That’s not fair.  They could just as easily been called after Ernest Hemingway, Groucho Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, or Joseph Stalin, – they all wore the same style – although a pair of Groucho’s does sound rather better than a pair of Stalin’s.
With comedy, you only have to look as far as the two Ronnies.  Messer’s Corbett and Barker flaunted their horn rims, and indeed the specs were all the logo the show needed.Where would Harry Hill be without his ludicrous glasses, delivering stupid lines like; “I have a really nice stepladder. Sadly, I never knew my real ladder.” without them?
Surely the most cringingly corporate, sickeningly sycophantic  and ultimately naff  use of designer glasses was  when Steve Wozniak, then of Apple Computers, went so far as to have Apple -shaped glasses made for him.  Steve Jobs didn’t like them much obviously.  Some celebrity designer glasses are not intended to boost ego and effect, but to improve performance.   The best example of this must be  snooker player Dennis Taylor’s famous glasses which were designed by Jack Karnehm, better known as BBC TV’s snooker commentator from 1978 to 1993. Having served a five-year spectacle-making apprenticeship, he developed Taylor’s distinctive, swivel-lens, upside-down design.  Those designer glasses helped Taylor win the 1985 world snooker title and made him seem almost exotic into the bargain!
Perhaps the most unusual celebrity designer glasses wearer was Eric Sykes.A true comedy genius, Sykes was never seen without his black horn rims.  But that was because he became profoundly deaf as an adult.The glasses Sykes wore had no lenses at all and were really a bone-conducting hearing aid. Designer glasses, what celebrity are yours?