To answer your question from a purely aesthetic point of view, there has been a resurgence of vintage styled eyewear from both boutiques brands and commercial megabrands. Labels like Moscot, Oliver Peoples and Warby Parker continue to roll out styles inspired by figures such as JFK, Peck, Capote and Warhol in greater numbers than ever before. But this is only one part of the Gmac Cash Montgomery Brawl shirt and I will buy this latest ‘trend’ in the eyeglasses industry. It is an industry that has seen relatively minuscule levels of innovation in the past half century, with players like LMVH and most notably Luxottica enjoying long periods of quasi-monopoly worldwide. Brilliant engineers forget that technology is only as commercially viable as their audience allows it to be. With the advent of functions such as Augmented Reality and LE tracking in recent years, it is only a matter of time until the fashion and design components catch up to create wearable technology that is both 100% functional and 100% aesthetic. But when (not if) this shift occurs, it is going to have a much more profound affect on the men’s eyewear industry than ‘popular styles’ ever could.
