Oliver Peoples

Poolside at the Lincoln Tower apartments just outside Chicago last weekend: Women in their 70s and 80s basked on plastic loungers, their faces half masked by sunglasses the size and shape of small television screens. Most were bought 30 years ago and bear such extinct labels as Anne Klein for Riviera. These days their style-obsessed daughters and granddaughters could be forgiven for wanting to snatch them away. But as it turns out, there is no need.

Contemporary variations of vintage movie-star shades are ubiquitous this season, as common as sugar cones and almost as easy to come by. The eyewear equivalent of bling, they compete for status with the fashionably oversize handbags toted by the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie and come in more styles than Baskin-Robbins has flavors. Already a West Coast badge of chic, they have emerged all across the country as summer's most sought-after fashion accessory.

An informal survey of stores in New York last week turned up wide-temple aviator frames by Stella McCartney, headlight-size wire rims by Giorgio Armani, scaled-up green wrap frames with matching lenses from Gucci and embossed tortoiseshell models from Bottega Veneta, to say nothing of a proliferation of wraparound visor styles that resemble the dark goggles offered as eye protection to laser-surgery patients.

According to James Spina, the editor of 20/20, an eyewear trade monthly, oversize frames now account for 20 percent of all sunglasses sales. Spina added that those styles have most likely contributed to a surge in overall sales of sunglasses this year, which have increased by nearly 10 percent for the period through March.

Prices vary widely, from $7 for squarish tinted models sold at H&M to $3,500 for monster-size red, white and blue vintage spectacles available through Cutler & Gross. Twenty dollars will fetch dramatic black-rimmed eyewear by Isaac Mizrahi for Target; $160 will buy saucer-size versions from Dita, the Los Angeles company that makes Supa Dupas, the fashion insignia of such tastemakers as Mary-Kate Olsen and style bait for postadolescents eager to emulate Olsen's affectless, just-out-of rehab look.

Curiously, a taste for shades that make the wearer look like an alien life-form required no push from marketers. Instead it got its momentum from the apparently spontaneous endorsement of such Hollywood stars as Angelina Jolie, Jessica Simpson and of course the Olsen twins, all of whom routinely appear in such magazines as In Style and Star flaunting frames that seem made to measure for Hollywood egos. Read more...