Girls Who Wear Glasses

In I Haven't A Thing to Wear, 1968 fashion guru Judith Keith offers advice to us gals who wear glasses.

Keith begins, "One way of falling flat on your face is by not wearing eyeglasses when you need them...Don't be near-sighted about the opportunities for a fashionable look with eyeglasses. Broaden your vision to include a wardrobe of frames to magnify the importance of even the simplest look."

More seriously, she advises on choosing glasses according to face shape:

• Oval: you can wear anything.
• Round: slender, up-tilting lines break up the roundness of a round face. 
• Avocado shaped faces need width at the brow to counterbalance a large jaw. 
• Square faces need curves and round shapes.
• Rectangular faces needs the illusion of width. A straight-across-the-top wide frame with rounded lower edges will do this.
• Heart shaped faces do well with square frames.
• Diamond shaped faces need frames wider on the top.
• A long, narrow face needs large round frames.

Keith notes that she had a friend who had glasses made with fabric swatches to match her outfits. Now that is a slave to fashion!

My first glasses were cats eye shaped in clear plastic with pink and blue flakes. Mom had identical ones. We both had permed Bubble Cuts, like the second Barbie doll. And wore matching mom & daughter plaid shirts. I was about six or seven. I suppose we were 'fashionable'.

I come from a family of girls who wear glasses.

My grandmother Emma Becker Gochenour wore round glasses in the 1920s. 

My grandmother Gochenour in the 1970s

Mom in the early 1950s

Mom in the 1970s. I can't believe Dad dressed that way!

Me in glasses around 1960; that's my lil' brother next to me

Me in cat eye glasses around 1962

Early 1970s. I married a guy with glasses, too.

Me when glasses were BIG and so was hair.

This 1968 ad suggests that eyeglasses were sexy. I missed that message.

1968 was the year Mom got me contact lens. Hard and weighted, they were mighty uncomfortable. I was told I could have them tinted brown, blue or green. I went with green! After a few years I gave them up.

In her book Keith wrote, "My first contact lens reminded me somewhat of my first girdle. I hated wearing them! They were uncomfortable, cumbersome, and I always wanted to remove them in the middle of an evening. Today, however, foundation garments and contact lens are geared for both color and comfort. The plastic lenses may be tinted to any shade you wish and Lycra, a modern man-made fiber, makes a modern woman firmer."

I tried the gas permeable lenses later, but they moved with every blink and made reading hard. I gave them up. I have never wanted to try them again. Glasses suit me fine.

Are you a girl who wears glasses?