Choosing the Right Sunglasses

Sunglasses are one of those vital accessories that your eyes will thank you for wearing. Other people?s eyes will also thank you for wearing them, if you choose ones that look good.

Choose frames that flatter your face

Becks knows

The rule of thumb for picking sunglasses is to get frames that are the opposite shape to your face. If you have a square face, get round glasses, and vice versa. This will make you look more balances and prevent you from looking like a lego man (square face) or a dinner plate (round face). If you?re lucky enough to have an oval face, you have your pick of any shape of sunglasses.

A carefully selected style can disguise features you?re not happy with in the eye area. Bad eyebrows, under-eye bags, and even the shape of the bridge of your nose can be hidden with the right frames. Likewise, poorly chosen sunglasses can accentuate bad features. For example, big sunglasses on a small face makes your face look even more diminutive and brow-line glasses (also known as ?Clubmasters?) make you look like you have a monobrow.

Make sure you try sunglasses on before buying them even if you have tried on similar designs before, just to check the proportions are right.

The designer decision

If you can afford it, get designer sunglasses rather than a cheap pair from a discount department store. Designer sunnies can usually be found in timeless designs, such as Ray-Ban?s aviators and wayfarers, which frequently enjoy resurgences in fashion. Aviators have rarely gone out of fashion thanks to celebrities and police officers consistently embracing them, and wayfarers have faded into fashion several times since their release in the 1950s.

Functionality versus fashion

When selecting sunglasses, you need to strike a balance between style and effectiveness. Wraparound sunglasses that offer protection for your peripherals may be very functional, but they are also quite unappealing. If you?re buying sunglasses for the sake of looking good, avoid wraparound styles. However, don?t skimp on features such as polarized lenses and a high UV rating, which do not affect the look of your sunnies but improve their usefulness.

Where not to wear sunglasses

Sunglasses can flatter your face, protect your eyes and allow you to check women out without being caught; so you might be tempted to wear them all the time. However, if worn in the wrong setting they make you look absolutely ridiculous. If the sun is not out, leave the sunnies at home. Wearing sunglasses at night doesn?t make you look cool or famous, it makes you look like you think you?re cool and famous. You look silly if you wear sunglasses when it is not weather appropriate, for example if you are indoors or in a thunderstorm. Wearing sunglasses does, in principle, make sense if you are in an indoor sky-lit area, yet doing so still makes you look like a tosser. It is also important to avoid sunglasses, or at least dark-colored opaque sunglasses, if you?re in a social situation where eye contact is vital.