The movie Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise as Lt Pete Maverick Mitchell and Kelly McGillis as Charlotte Charlie Blackwood with adequate support from Val Kilmer as Lt Tom Iceman Kazansky, launched several careers and fuelled many an adolescent fantasy, arguably the real stars though were the aviator sunglasses that adorned the cast in most of the movie. When the film aired sales of the aviator style specs soared with it, as the F14 Tomcat jet fighters, which at the time were the zenith of US naval aviation. Aviator style shapes are also the preferred designer sunglasses of Cristiano Ronaldo and were the accessory of choice for the late king of pop, Michael Jackson.
Obviously the main purpose of designer glasses for most people is image, but that image doesn’t always mean looking as cool as possible. You only have to look as far as the two Ronnies with their horn rim specs which were all the logo their show really needed. Their glasses became easily as iconic and recognisable as those of Lennon or Cruise but in the case of the two Ronnies, the point was to make them look sillier and more geeky. Snooker player Dennis Taylor’s famous designer glasses had a distinctive, swivel-lens, upside-down design. They might have looked more than a little strange but there’s no question they helped him win the world snooked title in 1985. One of the more bizarre pairs of glasses worn by a celebrity were the trademark horn rimmed specs of comedian Eric Sykes. Those designer glasses contained no lenses at all and were actually a bone-conducting hearing aid as Sykes had become profoundly deaf as an adult.
