Picking out the right pair of glasses oftentimes feels like a harrowing dilemma.
Glasses hold the power to bend social groups to your every whim. With the right pair of glasses, you can alter your entire aesthetic, facilitating chameleon-like transformations from film buff to math wiz to cool dad. But with all the style options out there, how do you find the right pair to nail the exact look you want? We’re here to help, which is why we’ve created a guide to all the guy-with-glasses aesthetics, along with the hard requirements you’ll need to meet if you want to make those aesthetics your reality.
The Hipster
Warby Parker
With the term “hipster” thrown around willy-nilly over the past decade, the hipster archetype has become somewhat muddled. Is a hipster a pretentious art connoisseur who’s convinced they have the correct taste in movies, music, and politics? Is a hipster someone who spends their day in the window of a coffee shop with their laptop opened to an empty Word document titled “My Screenplay” for all to see? Or is a hipster just a Brooklyn-based variant of the common douchebag? The truth is that the definition doesn’t really matter, just as long as the hipster wears thick-framed, rectangular glasses. Hipster glasses are unique, in that they can come in a variety of vibrant colors, and sporting loud, thick purple frames will certainly denote you as a massive pr!ck. But it’s worth noting that the classic hipster frame is black, akin to 3D glasses, which is intentional––If you’re always wearing 3D glasses, then everyone will know that you love movies more than they do.
The Scientist
Warby Parker
If you want to seem like a know-it-all, but not a pretentious one, you need people to believe that you’re actually smarter than they are. A STEM degree would be helpful here, but more importantly, you need a pair of scientist glasses. Similar to hipster glasses, scientist glasses must always be rectangular. Unlike hipster glasses, however, the scientist’s frames need to be wire thin––thick frames hide latent insecurity, while thin frames leave nothing to the imagination. Perhaps, paradoxically, the ideal scientist glasses’ lenses are perpetually covered with fog for a sinister air of mystery, but that’s only achievable in very cold environments or by always having a cup of hot tea on hand to generate steam.
The Bookworm
Warby Parker
Ever since Harry Potter became an international phenomenon, glasses with circular lenses have been synonymous with…well, Harry Potter. Now, when most people see someone wearing glasses with circular lenses, their train of thought (like the Hogwarts Express!) leads their brain to connect the person wearing the Harry Potter glasses to the idea of books, which will result in them believing that the wearer is an avid reader––A bookworm, if you will. So, naturally, any glasses guy who wants people to think they’re well-read, regardless of whether or not they’re actually a book-lover, will need to own a circular pair of glasses.
The 80’s Daddy
Warby Parker
Daddies were a little bit different back in the era when Led Zeppelin was still on-tour. They were no longer the stern-but-wise Atticus Finch daddies of the 1960s, but they weren’t quite the angry corporate boomer daddies of the modern day either. The 80s daddy was detached, with a quiet rage ever-simmering beneath his vacant expression at family dinner. At night, after the children were asleep, the 80s daddy would sneak down to the garage where he kept his toolkit. There, under a false bottom, the 80s daddy kept his key to a self-storage unit a few towns over. Locals spoke of the 80s daddy’s…hobby…in hushed whispers at community meetings, which the 80s daddy always attended. Of course, they didn’t know it was him, and the 80s daddy felt such a thrill at the thought of those rubes living in fear while he sat right beside them. Sometimes, the 80s daddy would pick one out, maybe someone who acted too brave or too knowing. At the next town meeting, everyone would be aghast, with that stupid brave soul nowhere to be seen. Tragedy had befallen him and his family, and only 80s daddy knew why. Anyways, 80s daddy wore thin-framed glasses with a double bridge, and you can, too.
