Hands up if you used to own a pair of Oakleys, the colourful tinted ones that wrap around your head and make you look kinda, um, shady. At best. Oh, don’t worry, you won’t be the only embarrassed one; looking back, we wished we had never worn board shorts outside of the beach, or flaunted transparent ear sticks like they were the height of fashion, but hey, 2000s, you gave us Britney x Justin and boyband hits we’re proud to belt today, so we ain’t complaining. As for those tinted shades though, they were definitely the in thing, judging from the videos we used to watch on MTV. If you don’t know what exactly we’re talking about, just take a look at this: J. Lo, circa 2001, in the “Love Don’t Cost A Thing” video.
Okay, you’re done humming the tune in your head, we suppose. Love don’t — shouldn’t — cost a thing, as the remarkably gorgeous J. Lo sings, but if you’d like to own a legacy, or a pair of tinted glasses that she perfectly dons while crooning in her convertible, and a style that’s currently trending on all the cool girls on our social media feeds, be prepared to shell out some money. Not yet convinced?
Here you go. Judging from how Gucci styled theirs in the Resort 2017 collection, and hot Korean eyewear brand, Gentle Monster, who went as far as to engage the indomitably cool Tilda Swinton in their recent collaboration, not to mention Kendall Jenner, Lily Donaldson and Carmen Hamilton gracing our header image, by the time you’re done, you’ll suddenly find yourself coveting them too. Thankfully, we’ve rounded up some of our favourites.
It’s not all rose-tinted glory this time, the 2017 version of tinted shades come in all colours, from turquoise to pink to bright canary yellow — with the key similarity being that they’re usually oversized and cover most of your face, which means more surface area to rock their varying shades too. Interestingly, this trend’s both a naughties revival and a 70s one, just think about the groovy era, so we see a good mix of geometric, cat eye or rounded lenses.
Another thing they have in common now is that plenty of them are sans rim, so instead of a metal portion framing the lenses, we’re just getting a pure smack of colour on our faces. There can be clear or coloured acetate frames that wrap around the lenses too, giving that illusion of weightlessness. Alright, move aside mirrored lenses! We’ll leave you to join the IG brigade then with your new pair of freshly tinted sunglasses — it totally doesn’t count if you don’t post a selfie with your new babies, of course.
Header Image: @lilydonaldson, @kendalljenner, @carmengracehamilton
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