The latest trend in eyewear, 10 XXL frames

To understand why oversize glasses hold such appeal, you have to go back to the Sixties. It was a time when skirts got shorter, rising well above the knee (Coco Chanel was famously not a fan), while glasses only got bigger. Oversize shades let you hide away, looking super stylish in the process. They proved invaluable for protecting stars from the paparazzi, so were swiftly adopted by the likes of Sophia Loren and Jackie Kennedy, whose glasses became all-important parts of their wardrobes. Princess Diana, Brigitte Bardot and Françoise Hardy also played their part in ensuring the success of oversize frames.

All this happened around the same time that oversize spectacles came out. Rather than hiding her short-sightedness, designer Emmanuelle Khanh would wear her oversize frames, with their sharp lines, with pride. Her look was both eccentric and elegant, as you can still appreciate from the EK eyewear collections. Yves Saint Laurent was another designer indissociable from his oversize frames, the work of Maison Bonnet in tortoiseshell. The shy designer wanted glasses big enough to hide behind. Years later, the talented Jenna Lyons, long-time Creative Director of J.Crew, would also made oversize spectacles iconic.

Discover our non-exhaustive list of the oversize designs to embrace.

Written by Eleanor Fullalove