by Megan Finnerty
The Arizona Republic
This spring, sunglasses are the new purse.
In fact, they’re so expensive, so big, so high-profile, they even have their own purses.
These mini-handbags, with tiny handles, show the worldthat, even if you’re not wearing them, you’re wearing them.
And now sunglasses have outpaced the purse when it comes to status shopping.
This season, it’s no longer enough to own one pair to protect your eyes. Just as women own several bags to pair with different outfits, women now are picking sunglasses to create multiple looks.
Sales are driven by sightings of shade-wearing celebrities, such as Mary-Kate Olsen, Nicole Richie, Demi Moore and Lindsay Lohan, an increase in the number of designer choices and sunglasses‘ relative affordability compared with other designer goods.
“Everybody actually feels like a movie star when you put them on,” Allure fashion director Sasha Charnin Morrison said. “The bigger the lens, the more important you look.”
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The number of sunglasses sold has increased more than 4 percent since 2004, according to the Sunglass Association of America, and increased 3 to 5 percent in each of the previous five years.
This increase is at every level, from $275 rhinestone Yves Saint Laurent shades at Neiman Marcus to $16.99 faux-tortoise Isaac Mizrahi shades at Target to $4.99 oversize no-name shades at Forever 21.
A sunglass wardrobe
For years, a woman had a great pair of sunglasses, channeling her inner Jackie O. and moving on. But now, a woman has a wardrobe of shades, channeling her inner Angelina Jolie one day and Audrey Hepburn the next, depending on the occasion, the rest of the ensemble and, of course, how sunny the day.
This is especially true in Arizona, where we’ve got about 300 sunny days a year.
Case in point: Scottsdale resident Misty Guerriero loves her sunglasses. It was the purchase she was most excited about making for this spring.
She’s got five pairs, which she obsessively deliberated over before buying: three pairs by Chanel and one each by Gucci and Ray-Ban.
Guerriero, 26, favors trendy sunglasses that cover her eyes and cheeks and has one pair so large she wears them as a face shield while riding with her boyfriend on his Harley-Davidson.
“I went on a mission to find those sunglasses,” she said. “I had seen Paris Hilton wearing these huge Diors, and I thought, ‘If she can pull them off, I can pull them off,’ because she’s got a little face like mine.”
More designer choices
For several years, designers such as Dior have increased the variety of their accessories collections, enabling women to buy a bit of the brand for a fraction of the price of an ensemble.
Sunglasses are an important part of this, said Allure’s Charnin Morrison.
For example, a Chanel bag starts at about $800, and Chanel sunglasses cost less than $300.
“But you’re still getting a piece of that (designer) pie. You’re wearing them as a showcase item, and it’s not going to kill you financially,” she said.
At Saks Fifth Avenue, Connie Hartgraves sees this kind of luxury “bargain” buying all the time: packs of 16-year-olds, maybe still a few years away from a bag, strolling the store in Chanel shades.
Saks stores across the country now outfit most mannequins with sunglasses, implying that an ensemble isn’t finished without a pair. In October, Saks’ Biltmore Fashion Park location in Phoenix more than tripled its display space and selection, with more than 700 pairs for sale, up from 200.
“We never took it as seriously as we are now,” said Hartgraves, the store’s assistant general manager, of this new demand.
The amount spent on sunglasses at Saks is up, too, more than 50 percent from this time last year.
And just down from Saks, at the Optical Shop of Aspen, shoppers can snap up a pair of $4,050 lenses by Chrome Hearts. Overall revenue is up 35 percent at the store, where more than 75 percent of the frames sold cost more than $500.
“Sunglasses are an important part of the full ‘look,’ a necessity rather than a luxury,” said Adrienne Weller, spokeswoman for the shop.
That’s true, said Charnin Morrison, whether you pay $500 or $15.
The allure
But why?
The allure of gorgeous glasses really started with her as she dodged the paparazzi while vacationing with Aristotle Onassis in the Aegean, and they’ve been a staple of celebrity style ever since.
The more recent obsession started a few seasons ago when tastemakers Michael Kors and Tom Ford outfitted their runway models with slightly oversize aviator lenses.
Fashion stylists picked up the glasses for celebrity clients, who wore them in paparazzi photos, which appeared in InStyle and Us Weekly, said Charnin Morrison.
From there, the look morphed as young Hollywood adopted the gargantuan plastic-rimmed look, allowing them to escape the paparazzi even more effectively.
