Why everybody yearns for Gentle Monster glasses

The first time we thought wearing glasses obscured our beauty was while we were watching  romcoms like Come Tu Mi Vuoi and Kiss Me (She's All That). The main characters only became more beautiful the moment their romantic interest managed to remove the thick shades from their eyes, as if an extra accessory could convince us that Cristiana Capotondi and Rachael Leigh Cook were not conventionally attractive even as four-eyed girls. Fortunately, a few years later Gisele Bündchen and Megan Fox proved otherwise, anticipating what in 2023 would be globally recognised as the renaissance of the 'hot librarian' aesthetic, spearheaded by it-girls such as Bella Hadid, Gabriette and more recently Billie Eilish. The official ambassador of eyewear brand Gentle Monster, in a recent interview with Allure the pop star wore the brand's Pierced 02 model, a collaboration with D'Heygere that has already sparked trails of fancams on TikTok thus sending these piercing glasses into viral orbit. But what's so attractive about a pair of glasses?

A far cry from the hipster glasses trend of 2013, the thick black-rimmed ones that were even worn without lenses during the rise of Starbucks and the Keep Calm graphics, Pierced 02 Gentle Monster x D'Heygere's glasses harken back to an imaginary past, but add a modern twist through inserts that make them look more like a piece of jewellery than a functional object. A silver metal frame with an oval shape creates a relatively simple pair of glasses, but the look is elegantly elevated by removable piercings with small diamonds. Combining nerds and bookworms' classic style with the child-like playfulness of customisation, Gentle Monster and D'Heygere have launched a product that organically fuses two core concepts of 2023: nostalgia and individuality. After all, D'Heygere's mission statement speaks of just that, navigating « the interplay between opposites - luxury and ordinary, reality and representation - reimagining mundane materials and commonplace objects as innovative, poetic and functional adornments made in Italy in silver 925 and leather.» Two months after the release of its collaboration with D'Heygere, Gentle Monster is hitting the mark again with the Optical 2024 collection, a line that harks back to the same aesthetic. Slim-framed silver and red slightly wrap-around glasses retrace the 2000s look that has made Gen Z fall in love in recent months, while the campaign images look to the edgy style of Kill Bill's Gogo Yubari. Actress Nana Komatsu and musician Shinichi Osawa revel in martial arts and robotics in high school outfits, tinging the photos with a dynamic, fresh edge. The piercings are missing, but the creative spirit of rebellion is still the same.

It seems that 2023 is the year of the renaissance of prescription glasses. Starting from the imagery of 90s nerds, brands and consumers have twisted an archetype by making it edgy, abandoning the look of cycling glasses once and for all. Good examples of this new four-eyed fashion are one of Kimhekim's designs, which added a pearl earring to dark lenses, or Gucci's, which hung pink marble maxi pendants on a gold frame. Librarians have always been hyper-sexualised in the media given their enigmatic innocence, but perhaps we have reached a turning point for these characters. On the one hand, Miu Miu's tortoiseshell glasses worn in the FW24 campaign by ambassadors Emma Corrin and Amelia Gray are reminiscent to all intents and purposes of the old, out-of-fashion ones worn by the 'ugly' protagonist of a 2000s romcom, on the other hand, the new releases by D'Heygere, Kimhekim and Gucci take up the ugly duckling banner, starting from scratch.