Making a Spectacle: A Fashionable History of Glasses

Hardback

Main Details

Title Making a Spectacle: A Fashionable History of Glasses
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Jessica Glasscock
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:256
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 182
Category/GenrePhotography and photographs
Product design
History of fashion
ISBN/Barcode 9780762473441
ClassificationsDewey:391.4409
Audience
General
Illustrations 175 color and b/w photographs; 50 color and b/w illustrations

Publishing Details

Publisher Running Press,U.S.
Imprint Running Press Adult
Publication Date 26 October 2021
Publication Country United States

Description

From 13th century Franciscan monks to Beyonce in Black is King, Making a Spectacle charts the fascinating ascension of eyeglasses, from an unsightly but useful tool to fashion's must-have accessory. The power of glasses to convey a range of vivid messages about their wearers have made them into a billion-dollar business that appeals to cool kids and rock stars and those who want to be like them, but the fashionable history of eyeglasses was fraught with anxiety and drama. At the beginning of the 20th century, the assessment in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar was that spectacles were "invariably disfiguring." Invisibility was the best option, and glasses were only to be put on once the lights at the opera went dark. While variations of that glasses-shaming sentiment appeared at regular intervals over the next 100 years or so, eyeglasses continued to evolve into an endless array of shapes, colors, purposes, and personalities. Once sunglasses took off in the 1930s, the magazine editorial made glasses a conspicuous part of the fashion narrative. Eyeglasses went to the ski slopes, the stables, the beach, the Havana hotel. Plastic innovations made a candy-colored rainbow of cat-eyes and "starlet" styles possible. Suddenly, everyone had the opportunity to look like Jackie O on vacation in Capri. Making a Spectacle traces contemporary high fashion frames back to their origins: the military aviator, the glam cat eye, the nerdly Oxford, the high-tech shield, the fanciful butterfly, the lowly rimless, and other styles all make an appearance. Featuring interviews with influential designers, makers, and purveyors of glasses including Adam Selman, Kerin Rose Gold, and l.a. Eyeworks, Making a Spectacle also takes a look at today's most cutting edge eyewear, showing the reader the latest and most innovative ways to see and be seen.

Author Biography

Jessica Glasscock is a lecturer in Fashion History at Parsons School of Design and worked as a researcher at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute for more than a decade.