Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1Harold LloydHarold LloydBorn 20 Apr 1893Harold Lloyd created his Glasses character in 1917, an eager young man in round horn-rimmed frames, and wore lensless versions so the studio lights would not reflect. The frames made an ordinary-looking hero instantly recognisable, most famously hanging from the clock face in Safety Last! (1923).0i
  2. 2Groucho MarxGroucho MarxGroucho Marx's round wire glasses, painted-on moustache, heavy eyebrows and cigar made up one of the most copied faces in comedy through the Marx Brothers films of the 1930s. The combination became a cheap novelty disguise sold as Groucho glasses, which says how firmly the frames belong to him.0i
  3. 3Ray CharlesRay CharlesBorn 23 Sept 1930Ray Charles lost his sight as a child, and the dark glasses he wore through his career became inseparable from his image at the piano, head rocking and grin wide. Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning performance in Ray (2004) used the same frames as its visual shorthand.0i
  4. 4Buddy HollyBuddy HollyBuddy Holly swapped lighter frames for thick black horn-rims bought from an optician in Mexico City in 1958, and they became the image of the bespectacled rock and roll star. Recovered after his death, the glasses are now displayed at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, and the style is still named…0i
  5. 5Audrey HepburnAudrey HepburnBorn 4 May 1929The oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses Audrey Hepburn wears as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), usually credited to the London maker Oliver Goldsmith, appear in the film's opening shot outside the jewellers. With the black Givenchy dress they made sunglasses part of one of cinema's…0
  6. 6Stevie WonderStevie WonderStevie Wonder, blind since infancy, has worn dark glasses since his days as Little Stevie at Motown in the early 1960s. With braided hair in the 1970s, the glasses framed the image of his run of albums from Talking Book to Songs in the Key of Life and remain his constant signature.0i
  7. 7Roy OrbisonRoy OrbisonRoy Orbison left his ordinary glasses on a plane in 1963 and went on stage in prescription dark glasses for a British tour with the Beatles. He kept them, and the black frames, black clothes and still stage manner became the enigmatic image that suited his operatic ballads.0i
  8. 8Eric MorecambeEric MorecambeEric Morecambe made his heavy-rimmed glasses a prop, knocking them askew, peering over them at Ernie Wise and slapping the back of his own neck in mock alarm. Through The Morecambe and Wise Show from the 1960s to the 1980s, the glasses became part of the warmth of British television comedy.0i
  9. 9Michael CaineMichael CaineBorn 14 Mar 1933Michael Caine wore his own heavy black frames as the spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965), a pointed contrast with the polished James Bond. The glasses made Palmer look like a working-class civil servant rather than a playboy, and they became part of Caine's image as a London star of the…0i
  10. 10John LennonJohn LennonBorn 9 Oct 1940John Lennon first wore small round wire frames for his role in How I Won the War (1966) and kept them, turning the plain, National Health-style glasses into a counterculture symbol. They appear in nearly every image of his later career, and round frames are still widely called Lennon glasses.0i