Dear Mr. Smith: I have to get new glasses. Are there any trends in frames that I should be aware of?
Of course there are. Right now, it's all about bold frames, spectacles that don't pretend to be invisible. Such frames are mostly black or tortoiseshell plastic. Among the advanced class, particularly artists, the trend is toward wearing clear plastic frames. The days of skinny wire frames or, worse, the rimless frames that U.S. defence secretary Robert McNamara first made manly while bombing Vietnam in 1965 are over.
Note that tortoiseshell is the name of a colour, not a substance. Real tortoise shell, from the hawksbill sea turtle, was used for combs, spectacles and guitar picks until the 1970s, but that animal is now an endangered species and traffic in its shells is therefore banned. The colour is a mottled brown and varies from almost black to almost yellow. The lighter or yellower it is, the more visible and therefore more daring it will be. Don't be afraid of other colours: Blue or red frames won't be as noticeable as you think and won't broadcast any message about your sexuality.
Here's a guide to the basic shapes:
Rounded, almost circular frames of the kind worn frequently by Johnny Depp look academic. They're perfect for the Trotskyite-professor effect and are best enhanced by a beard.
Boxier frames look more conservative. The classic Ray-Ban Wayfarer shape - not quite square but not round either - fits most faces. The more flattened the rectangles, the more like an architect you will look. (Perfectly circular frames made of heavy plastic were the flamboyant signatures of architects such as Le Corbusier and Philip Johnson, so don't wear them unless you are consciously signalling a nostalgic allegiance to their work.)
Aviator frames are also nostalgic (for the seventies) and so tend to be worn by hipsters who are ironic about everything. (I can't stand them.)
As for fit, all frames should be exactly as wide as your face and the top rim should cover your eyebrows. Avoid, at all costs, a visible logo on the arms: You are not being paid to distribute advertising for large companies. Since the names of designers are, sadly, hard to avoid these days, just ensure that any stamps or signatures are small enough to be readable only from very close.
Finally, get the glasses adjusted once a year. The shop that sold them can tighten or replace the screws and gently bend them back into shape. Don't try it yourself or you'll snap them.
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