The official creator of spectacles is unknown. Alhazen, an Arabian mathematician, is widely considered the “Father of Modern Optics”, while Italian Salvino D’Armati is credited with creating the first wearable pair of eyeglasses in the 13th century.
Over 4 billionpeople across the world wear glasses.
According to Statista, eyewear revenue in New Zealand in 2024 is estimated to be US$458.6 million ($785.77m). The largest market segment is spectacle lenses - expected to reach a market volume of US$202.2m ($346.53m).
I’ve worn glasses since I was 7 years old and I still loathe them, writes Anna Sarjeant.
I found out I needed to wear glasses in quite a peculiar manner.
I was 7 years old, sitting on a fence with my older brother, “collecting number plates”.
Correct. For someone who would later become the most popular boy in our high school, my brother’s favourite pastime aged 10, was writing down the number plates of passing cars.
Particularly in August in the UK – when the new batch of biannual plates are released.
As his number one fan, I helped, and in the summer of ‘93, while holidaying in the Lake District, I struggled to see the mix of numbers and letters.
Eye test at the optician. Photo / nrd on Unsplash
A fortnight later and I’m sobbing in the reception area of my family’s optometrist. I’ve been told I need to wear glasses.
If you’ve ever seen NHS-prescribed spectacles of the 90s, you’d cry too.
Interestingly, I survived primary school by making my glasses a comedy prop – wearing them upside down would erupt a classful of 9-year-olds into raucous laughter.
But when I hit adolescence (and that awful time when self-esteem plummets to a record low), I begged my optician for contact lenses. He said no to me aged 12, 13 and 14, but by the time I hit 15, he caved.
I know you want me to say that it made no difference to my life, confidence or appearance whatsoever. To the contrary, contact lenses changed everything.
It had the exact effect that I desired as a teenager.
Boys started noticing me. Maybe not as much as my big-busted mates, but I started to receive “glances”, and every girl knows when a male is glancing, regardless of how subtle they think they are being. Spoiler: Men don’t know what subtle is; teenage boys are basically cartoon dogs with eyes on stalks.
Suddenly the local bus driver - somewhat creepily in hindsight – would let me on the bus for free, citing “prettiness”. I should have reported him. Instead, I lapped it up.
To validate my new, non-dorky status were a plethora of 90s and Millennium-era films. Makeovers were all the rage in storylines for hit teenage movies such as She’s All That, Miss Congeniality and The Princess Diaries. All of them have one major commonality when it comes to taking the girl from grim to gorgeous... off with the specs!
The next day, boys will fall at the protagonist’s feet; respect from her peers will skyrocket and life is peachy.
But I already knew all this. I cried in the opticians aged 7 because I’d already been drip-fed the narrative that glasses are geeky. Glasses are a one-way ticket to being called “specky four eyes”. Glasses are undesirable.
Who wants to be dorky Velma Dinkley from Scooby Doo, when you can be the cool and cute Daphne Blake?
The likeable yet bumbling Clark Kent is a nobody until he rips off his shirt and ditches his specs. Then he attains everything: attention, power, good looks and confidence. Lest we forget, he also gets the girl.
I’m 38 and I’m still shackled to the same rhetoric. I now wear my glasses more than contact lenses but if I go to a wedding/work event/date night, I have to wear contact lenses.
And they called the show Ugly Betty. Photo / Getty Images
No one forgets to reorder their lenses more than me, so when I do have to wear glasses for a special occasion, I feel more self-conscious and introverted. It’s like wanting to put your best foot forward but feeling like you have a disadvantage, as if my personality and likeability are directly linked to how I look in spectacles.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s vanity pure and simple. I’m not saying “woe is me”, but it’s interesting how society stereotypes people in glasses. Sarah Mariucci is the author of legal article, ‘Eye see you: How criminal defendants have utilized the nerd defense to influence jurors’ perceptions', which details how some defence attorneys use glasses as a means to make someone appear smart (or smarter). Talking to CNN in 2022, Mariucci explains that “defence attorneys are trying to get the jury to think ‘look how sweet and smart and nerdy and peaceful [the defendant] appear[s]’.”
In a slightly more pragmatic statement, an article titled ‘Effects of eyeglasses on perception, recognition, and impression of faces’ published in the European Journal of Psychology states that, according to the stereotype, “people who wear glasses are more intelligent, but less attractive”.
Who wants to be Velma Dinkley when you can be the cool and cute Daphne Blake? Photo / Getty Images
Fortunately, my partner has never made me feel any less attractive in my assortment of specs, but a lot of people aren’t afraid to reinforce the negative connotations, both knowingly and unknowingly.
As a child, my pet peeve was being singled out for wearing spectacles. For example, a PE teacher picked me for a sports team by referring to me as “the girl in glasses”. I remember furiously telling my mum that she wouldn’t dare spotlight someone as “the kid with a hearing aid”.
I’ve also had countless instances when strangers guess what job I do. It’s always a librarian.
Not long ago, an (ahem) gentleman took my glasses off in a bar (an unexpected night out with friends otherwise I’d have been wearing contact lenses) and told me I was prettier without them.
Funny, when I took them off, he became more attractive too.
I’ll be 40 in just over a year and I was going to treat myself to laser eye surgery, but my desperation for 20/20 vision is wearing off.
Yes, I will always feel uglier in glasses, but I don’t care as much as I did 10, 20, 30 years ago.
I’m entering my invisible era anyway; in five years time, I’ll be a middle-aged mum with two young kids – the only expectation appearance-wise is to avoid leaving the house without my son’s fuzzy felt stuck to my bum.
There are no free bus rides left for this girl. I’ll have to wait for my SuperGold Card. By which time I fully intend to wear my giant-rimmed specs with as much GAF-panache as the late Iris Apfel.
Wear your spectacles with the same panache as Iris Apfel. Photo / Getty Images
