I Bought My First Pair of Real Glasses Thanks To Milan

Peer pressured by Italy, I learned that reading glasses are the building blocks of someone’s look.

Today for #NEVERWORNS, I’m talking about how I bought my first pair of real glasses because everyone and their mother (and grandmother) had killer ocular fashion in Milan—and beyond! A special thank you to @gettyimagesfanclub for sourcing some of these fantastic archival photos and for my former colleague and friend Emily Farra who edited this piece. Now, subscribe below to the Substack, watch the YouTube, and buy #NEVERWORNS clothes here if you want to get freaky!

Kate Moss for Calvin Klein eyewear in 1997

Before I went to Milan, I was always hearing about the city’s offerings of femme fatale lingerie but when I visited there a few days ago, what I was most transfixed by was the eyewear. In New York, there is a Duane Reade suffocating every block; in Milan, it’s a charming little eyewear shop, or an “Ottica.” Eyewear is a thing here. This isn’t just two shards of glass connected by a stretched-out paper clip, either. The glasses here are truly fabulous. Hulking nuclear green Lucite frames the shape of an octagon, thin ruby red thin rectangle frames, or rimless—and tinted—iterations! In Italy, there is a cornucopia of eyewear possibilities. In fact, I saw one man wearing a pair of circular wire frame glasses that had no handles, elegantly balancing on the bridge of his nose. Until now, I didn’t even know those floating forms of glasses could exist. 

Celine Cat-Eye Glasses

But what fascinated me the most about eyewear in Italy was not the eyewear itself, but that everyone had a nice pair. The luxury specs weren’t just for fashion-heads trying to show that they were able to read—mazel tov!—but normal people had killer pairs: The 50-something woman at the supermarket smelling oranges in a long fur coat and sneakers in bold Buddy Holly frames, the shrunken old man strolling to nowhere with his hands clasped behind his back in a tweed blazer with Coke bottle tortoiseshell rims, and the buttoned-up woman working a three-star hotel concierge sporting fist-sized, layered frames, which looked straight out of an Alessandro Michele-era Gucci show. 

Oleg Cassini Glasses

While I was there, I wanted that same defining quality that Italian eyewear gives. The last glasses I ever bought were heinous, low-grade plastic bootleg Pumas (“Poma”) from an eyewear store in Kyiv about four years ago. (They are missing an arm now, and I solely wear them to watch movies in bed). Other than that, I’m a 1-800-Contacts girl, buying the retailer’s almost-expired lenses. I asked my friend and former Vogue colleague, Milanese babe Francesca Ragazzi—who is now heading up fashion at Vogue Italia—where a girl can get vintage frames. She recommended Foto Veneta Ottica, a family-owned vintage eyewear shop that has existed since 1931 and is located on the cusp of Milan’s Soho-style district. The store is a dream for those looking for an eyewear experience that doesn’t feel like the sad gynecologist’s office…aka a soulless Lenscrafters. 

The rimless Look glasses I bought at Foto Veneta Ottica.

I was imagining myself in a rimless iteration circa 1998, as some bookish but hot thang who had a steady rotation of cashmere black turtlenecks and wore her hair in a claw clip with a few messy tendril strands falling next to her face. (That could be me? Right?!). I was in good hands: The man who helped me at Foto Veneta Ottica was a generational genius in the world of eyewear, and he knew exactly what I wanted. He brought over a tray of glasses, all rimless, which included taffy-colored Versace pairs (he liked the Medusa detailing on the handle) and slick, gold-accented pieces by Gianfranco Ferré (those were his favorites). But for me, he recommended a made-in-Italy pair by Look, a brand I had never heard of. The lenses had a slight trapezoidal shape, which almost lifted my face—no cat-eye surgery needed here!—while the handles were in a certain hue of baby blue that I swear I only truly remember from my childhood in, like, 1998 (!). I was sold, as in €180-sold, the most I’ve really spent on glasses — or really anything. 

Cartier Rimless Glasses

Am I crazy for dropping that much on a pair of glasses? Do I now just look like a cool chick on the cusp of Y2K who barely got above a 1100 on her SATS and is still an idiot thanks to an even lower bank account balance? Maybe, maybe not. I’d like to think not. Instead, I’d like to think I’m part of the eyewear experience in Italy, as well as its fascinating history with glasses. Rumor has it that all the way back in ancient Rome, a Roman tutor named Seneca read books by using a glass bowl filled with water, which magnified texts. Later, around 1290 AD, it is believed that friar Giordano da Pisa frolicked around holding a pair of glasses to his face, which is how people wore them back in the day. The frames were set into wood, animal horn, or leather. Italy has come a long way: Years later—well, several— there is Luxottica, which has a monopoly on the optical market and is based in Milan: They produce eyewear for favorite brands like Chanel, Prada, Giorgio Armani, and also are in the mass market realm of Oliver Peoples and Oakley.

My new glasses…ok!

In Italy, more specifically Milan, everything revolves around this optometrical accessory. Glasses are more than just glasses to fall asleep to Netflix in. (Former me!) Instead, they are a saucy little hint into someone’s personality. I observed this when I met up with my friend Riccardo Terzo, a professor and stylist, in the stylish Brera district. He was wearing an incredible pair, but the incredible effect took a second to sink in. At first glance, the frames appeared to be the same shape—both circles—but on a second glance, they are actually a circle and a square. The difference was subtle, and his choice in eyewear was a really clever “aha” moment; it was a really chic wink.

Riccardo Terzo and amazing glasses.

A few days after I saw Terzo, I was traveling back to Milan from the bathhouse town of Bormio in northern Italy. On the way, we stopped at a gas station for coffee, and the 50-something woman behind the counter was wearing a pair of cat-eye sunglasses with white rims. Her frames sassily flicked outward like a mischievous smirk; that little upturned angle was like an exclamation mark extending from the corners of her eyes, as if to say “I have a bit of a bite!” And she did! She had this charming confidence and happily popped a hip and did a showboat pose for me when I asked to take a picture. Afterwards, my man made an important observation: He noted that he liked how she matched them to her tiny white square earrings. They are the prime real estate of someone’s look; the building blocks of an outfit.

The woman who I met en route to Milan wearing Gucci glasses.

Tory Burch Glasses

Inspired, I used my free-three-issues-a-year pass from the Vogue Italia archive and flipped through the pages of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s of le reviste. It was filled with can’t-miss-it eyewear ads. In the mix are these great Calvin Klein eyewear campaigns featuring Kate Moss and Christy Turlington. They really do add something elegant to the face. Moss modeled a tiny tortoiseshell pair, the frames were circular, but it was almost as if someone pinched them to give them a flare on the ends; just a hit of va va voom.  

I was chatting with the user @gettyimagesfanclub, who digs up the best images on Getty Images. They sent me some photos of Naomi Campbell at a basketball game in a pair of circular glasses the size of figs. Such an odd choice! You’d think she’d be wearing something more…sensual? But instead, they were so funky. Campbell looked like a real fun chick in them—and she was out doing just that, being a fun chick! In another instance, they dug up a video of an early Madonna wishing Australia a “Merry Christmas!”. There she is, the sassy, even charmingly rude Queen of Pop, acting like a class clown in a pair of massive circle-framed glasses and a strand of pearls around the collar of her white shirt; subverting the proper look and making it her very freaky, sticking-her-tongue-out own.

Eyeglasses are one of the most necessary items you can have, but the Milanese–and perhaps Italians in general–elevate them just a few degrees beyond “function” so they they express something—rims or no rims!—about how they view the world. On that note, time to cancel that order from 1-800-Contacts.