The Many Glasses of Curly Hair with Glasses

This post goes out to my favorite older sister, Rebecca, who requested this post almost two months ago. Better late than never, right?

When I was a kid, I desperately wanted glasses. I don't know why, but I have memories of trying to cheat on my eye test so the eye doctor would think I needed them. (Having worn glasses with the wrong prescription, I now understand why this was a terrible idea.) I finally got them for part-time wear in 7th grade, and was full time by 9th grade. I used to try to wear contacts, but my eyes do not care for them, so I have come to love my glasses-wearing self. Some people say glasses annoy them, but it turns out that if you wear them every day for well more than a decade, you get used to them.

Over here at Curly Hair with Glasses, you might have noticed that I have many pairs of glasses. I have three that I wear most of the time, one pair that it never occurs to me to wear for some reason, one pair that I mostly wear for running/ other exercising, and a pair of sunglasses. Yes, that is MANY pairs of glasses. I've accumulated them over a number of years. I have one pair of fairly expensive glasses-- those are the turquoise ones-- and all of the others are from either Warby Parker or Zenni Optical. The good thing about Warby Parker is that they'll put new lenses in for $50, so I've been able to change their lenses a couple of times for not too much money. So now, let us proceed.

The Blank Canvas

Here I am, in all of my glasses-less glory. I actually barely recognize myself without them these days. As you can see, I have a very young face (I did, in fact, get carded at an R-rated movie only a couple of years ago), so part of the function of my glasses is to age me a bit. Let's move on.

The Turquoise Chanel glasses

These are the glasses I have had the longest-- seven years now, I think. I LOVE them. They're sort of my signature, at least in my mind. The story of how I got these glasses is sort of funny. I went to my dad's guy (yes, my dad has a guy for things like this) and told him I wanted turquoise glasses. Apparently such things are hard to come by, so he had me try on lots of others. I fell in love with this shape, but he only had them in black. Black is not so much my color, on account of the blinding whiteness of my skin. But then he looked on the computer and found that they had them in turquoise, but they were only for sale in Italy. Win for Rachel! So now I have my fancy Chanel glasses ordered specially from Europe, that I wear with my clothes from Old Navy. Because that's how I roll.

Warby Parker Welty

These were my first foray into hipster glasses. The guy in the store insisted that they weren't hipster because they didn't touch my cheeks. But let's be real here. Anyway. They are purple, which I love, and they give me a little more peripheral vision because they're so big. I like them a lot most of the time, but sometimes I think I sort of look like a bug when I wear them. These are the pair I'm most likely to look back on and wonder what I was thinking. But for now I enjoy them, and what is fashion if not a chance to give my hypothetical future children a chance to laugh at me?

Warby Parker Theo

These are the pair I most recently acquired. They are more similar to the Welty than I realized when I bought them but I kept them anyway. It's hard to tell in the picture, but they're blue marblewood, which means mostly brown with some blue undertones. They're a little quieter than my other plastic frames in both shape and color, so I felt like they might be good if I ever have to go to a conference or something. I like the shape a lot-- similar to the turquoise but wider, and not quite as hipster as the purple ones.

Zenni Optical Rimless

These are mostly my running glasses. I know that might seem silly, but try exercising with a giant piece of plastic jumping up and down on your face. It doesn't work so well. I don't really buy from Zenni anymore because I worry that I'm causing the exploitation of small Chinese children (how else can you sell prescription glasses starting at $6.99?) but these have been useful over the years. Also, if I ever feel like really mixing up my look, this is as close as I get to going glasses-less.

Warby Parker Reece

These are the ones I hardly ever wear. I'm not sure why; I do like them. They're actually a dark navy, even though they look black in the picture. They're very similar in shape to the turquoise ones, which might be why they only get pulled out occasionally. Perhaps this post will inspire me to wear them more. We shall see.

Warby Parker Paley Sunglasses

Because I am so cool that I wear sunglasses inside...

For many years, I didn't have prescription sunglasses. I just squinted a lot in the summer. Then I started driving at the embarrassingly late age of 25. (That's what happens when you grow up in Manhattan.) Suddenly squinting seemed like a sort of dangerous idea. I actually had a lot of trouble finding sunglasses that I liked, but these have served me well for the last few years. And in general, no, I am not that guy who wears them inside. Consider this a special occasion for you.

So there you have it. As is probably clear, I like to use my glasses as an accessory. If I'm going to wear them every day, why not have some fun, after all?

What kind of glasses do you prefer? And which of these are your favorites?