Fifties shades retro

Dig out your old sunglasses! They’re back in fashion as A-list celebs go...

IT WAS the early Hollywood stars of the 1920s who first established sunglasses as the essential accessory, shading their eyes to preserve their anonymity on the sunny streets of LA – or hiding the bloodshot evidence of their famously louche lifestyles.

Sunglasses have been intertwined with glamour ever since, and every decade has had a signature style to define the era: think of Jackie Kennedy’s oversized black pebbles worn either on the nose or on the top of the head or Beatle John Lennon’s reclaiming of the round NHS-issue specs so hated by generations of schoolchildren.

But those days of sunglasses certainty are so over. In tune with the trend for ransacking the past for ‘new’ ideas, the-style conscious can steal a ‘look’ from any decade and star they choose – from Twiggy to Dame Edna and beyond. Celebrities and High Street stores alike are sporting a bewildering assortment of shades that have one thing in common: they are all retro twists on classic 20th-century designs.

It seems that when it comes to fashion for the face, in true Hollywood style, it’s back to the future...