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Imagine John Lennon wore no eyeglasses? Or Harry Potter? Or Clark Kent? Famous personalities and even fictional characters are either known for their intellect or personality or even supernatural powers. But eyeglasses play a big part in giving these famous personalities an iconic look (pun intended). Scroll down to have a look.

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John Lennon

“I see the clouds

Oh, I see the sky

Everything is clear in our world.”

According to his optometrist in New York, John would always pick out new frames, knowing what exactly he wanted; round or slightly off-round shapes, his signature Beatles eyewear. He also favoured cable temples (wraparounds), as they kept his frames on while he’s rocking the stage. In 2013, Yoko Ono shared a picture of her husband’s blood-stained glasses – the one he was wearing when he was assassinated in 1980 in New York – for her anti-gun messages on her Twitter account. A similar image was used as cover art for Ono’s 1981 album Season of Glass.

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Steve Jobs

“If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.”

The round, rimless frames of Steve Jobs’ glasses had become an iconic part of his appearance. In 2011, following his death, the rimless glasses inspired by him rose to popularity. The manufacturer who had designed Jobs’ glasses in 1998 was flooded with requests for identical frames, and from then on, consumer demands for the “Jobs glasses” grew quickly. The glasses became an instant sell-out in trade shows across the globe.

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Mahatma Gandhi

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”

Gandhi’s distinctive round-lensed pair of spectacles which he purchased in the UK in the 1890s during his law study is a significant belonging which was included in an archive material displayed in an auction house in Shropshire, England. It was reported that one of India’s richest businessmen paid £1.27 million to return Gandhi’s possessions to India, believing that the deceased man’s possessions should be sent back to their “rightful home”.

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Clark Kent

“You will see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father and the father becomes the son.”

In DC Comic’s Smallville series, it was mentioned that Kal-El aka Superman or Clark Kent, an extraterrestrial being, had difficulty coming up with a disguise on his “hero” identity on Earth. He had always wanted to help the inhabitants of Earth but he’d also wish to disguise his nerdy, mild-mannered persona as Clark Kent, the reporter at the Daily Planet, without having to cover his face. So he dons a pair of black horn rimmed glasses to which Lois Lane approved. They both believe that he should keep the glasses on to keep a civilian identity.

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Harry Potter

“Tell them how it happened that night! How you looked him in the eye, a man who trusted you, and killed him!”

Ironically, in J.K. Rowling’s well-known novel, not everything can be fixed by magic, not even Harry Potter’s nearsightedness. However, there are spells which can mend broken glasses, like when Hermione Granger and Arthur Weasley used the Oculus Reparo spell to fix Harry’s glasses during separate incidents. Except when wearing Spectrespecs, a magical type of spectacles that allowed the wearer to see wrackspurts and distributed for free in an issue of The Quibbler in 1996, Harry’s round-rimmed glasses have peculiar resemblance to his father’s glasses. In a Reader’s Digest interview with Rowling in 2000, however, the author insisted to keep Harry’s glasses on, noting that they are the “clue to his vulnerability” as a protagonist.

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Men in Black

“This is called a neuralyzer. It’s a gift from some friends from out of town. This red eye here will isolate the electronic impulses in your brains, more specifically the ones for memory.”

They wear black suits. They have olive complexions. They drive black mint-condition vintage luxury cars or fly in black helicopters. And most of all, they wear sunglasses. The legend of the Men in Black, which was invigorated by Folklorist Peter Rojcewicz and nursed by ufologists, has seized the interest of the broadcast media and pop culture since the 1940s. But what’s interesting is that whatever the popular belief is or whichever conspiracy hullabaloo one leans toward, it’s undeniable that the film’s interpretation of the MIB did not only stick to saving the world from some “alien invasion” and ultimate world destruction, but they also boosted up the Ray-Ban Predator sunglasses to iconic status.

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Iconic eyewear’s honorable mentions:

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