Making a Spectacle: A Fashionable History of Glasses

by Jessica Glasscock

From 13th century Franciscan monks to Beyoncé in Black is King , Making a Spectacle charts the fascinating ascension of eyeglasses—from an unsightly but useful tool to fashion's must-have accessory.

The power of glasses to convey a range of vivid messages about their wearers have made them into a billion-dollar business that appeals to cool kids and rock stars, and those who want to be like them, but the fashionable history of eyeglasses is fraught with anxiety and drama. At the beginning of the 20th century, the assessment in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar was that spectacles were "invariably disfiguring." Invisibility was the best option, and glasses were only to be put on once the lights at the opera went dark.

While variations of that glasses-shaming sentiment appeared at regular intervals over the next 100 years or so, eyeglasses continued to evolve into an endless array of shapes, colors, purposes, and personalities. Once sunglasses took off in the 1930s, the magazine editorial made glasses a conspicuous part of the fashion narrative. Eyeglasses went to the ski slopes, the stables, the beach, the Havana hotel. Plastic innovations made a candy-colored rainbow of cat-eyes and "starlet" styles possible. Suddenly, everyone had the opportunity to look like Jackie O on vacation in Capri.

Making a Spectacle traces contemporary high fashion frames back to their the military aviator, the glam cat eye, the nerdly Oxford, the high-tech shield, the fanciful butterfly, the lowly rimless, and other styles all make an appearance. Featuring interviews with influential designers, makers, and purveyors of glasses including Adam Selman, Kerin Rose Gold, and l.a. Eyeworks, Making a Spectacle also takes a look at today's most cutting edge eyewear, showing the reader the latest and most innovative ways to see and be seen.

Genres: History, Fashion, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published October 26, 2021

Reviews

[Aubrey Hess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reads like a well curated fashion exhibit found at any art museum in a major metropolitan. The book visually stunning, I encourage you to not only look at the pictures and actually read the text. The book is well organized and delivers information thoroughly. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in costume history. I learned a lot of things I did not know!

[Russell Sanders · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was gifted Jessica Glasscock’s Making a Spectacle: A Fashionable History of Glasses because I have had a life-long admiration and fascination with eyewear. When I saw the book, I thought I would be extremely entertained and informed by it. The first third or so is engaging: a history of vision correction via lenses. In the early days—dating back to the thirteenth century—users were mostly male. As eyewear developed, women started using correction more and more, but only as handheld devices for they were warned that wearing actual glasses was unfashionable. But, as we are well aware, that taboo eventually disappeared. Glasscock explains all this well, in a brisk manner with profuse usage of illustrations from art and early print works. When she eventually gets to the twentieth and then twentieth-first centuries, I was less enthused. It seems Glasscock’s definition of “fashionable” applies only to women. She is affiliated with both Parsons School of Design and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, so she has great credentials as far as fashion goes. But apparently, her interests lie only in fashion for women. I had hoped her book would cover eyewear trends for both men and women. And finally, what truly turned me off is that I believe the “Fashionable History of Glasses” in her subtitle is misleading. As Glasscock moves into the more recent decades, her focus is entirely on sunglasses, showing picture after picture of designer clothes coupled with sunglasses that the designers have put with them. A book that purports to be about glasses, I believe, should be about more than sunglasses. I was tricked by her title and the early pages to believe I was reading a book about corrective lenses only to be lead into nothing more than a fashion magazine spread. In recent decades, innovations for both men and women who need vision correction (and, I might add, have started purchasing multiple pairs to suit various fashion choices) have been made. And yet, Glasscock wants us to believe those innovations have been only in women’s fashion and in sunglasses. I was very disappointed. Had I been able to see the book ahead of time (it was chosen and purchased through a simple online listing,) I would not have bought it, and I dare say, the person who gave it to me probably would not have chosen it either.

[Brianna Gold · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super disappointed in this. It’s basically a coffee table book and feels like a paper you’d write in high school when assigned the prompt of “the history of a unique element of fashion or culture”. There is very little storytelling to it; the author lists facts after fact and jumps around from century to century. There are two interviews with modern embellishers and designers, but they are so poorly conducted and transcribed that I didn’t read them fully. While Glasscock may be a great lecturer of fashion history, she is not a writer.

And one important note: For a book about the history of glasses, it is INCREDIBLY difficult to read with its glossy pages and choice of font. Granted, my eye sight is horrible and probably worst than most, but this was something I almost couldn’t believe was missed in the editing and design process!

Giving a bonus star for some really cool photos. 😄

[Tamar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly looked at the pictures, but the historical writing was simultaneously charming and interesting.

[Carol Fischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readable text, many pictures/photographs. Enjoyed the history/development of corrective lenses. The discussion of gendered frames especially interesting.

[Erika Desfontaines · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is by far the most complete and comprehensive I’ve found on the history of eyewear. Great interviews with iconic eyewear designers. Would recommend

[Sacha · Rating 3 out of 5]

After hearing an interview with the author, I checked this out to enjoy all the fabulous photos. They did not disappoint!