What’s Up With the Wayfarer™?

I was a child in the 1980s but I still remember knowing there was one type of sunglasses that were cooler than all the others: the Ray-Ban Wayfarer™.

Now more than thirty years later I’m still seeing Wayfarers™ everywhere! Most recently I saw even the Disney Princesses sporting pairs with clear lenses in a funny “Hipster Disney Princess” video on You Tube.

But, Wayfarers™ aren’t just a hipster trend.

The Wayfarer™ is Back, and They are Everywhere

I looked into the history of these iconic frames and found that Ray-Ban released their first pair of Wayfarer™ sunglasses in 1956.  They rose to popularity, in part, because the plastic frame was out-of-the-ordinary in an era where only metal eyeglasses were widely available.  The trapezoidal shape of the original Wayfarer™ lens communicated a sense of “danger” and “instability” according to one fashion designer.  This gave them a James Dean sort of cool.

It’s debatable as to whether or not the Wayfarer™ or the Aviator™ (also first released by Ray-Ban) is the best-selling sunglasses frame in history.  But, it’s a fact that the Wayfarer™ has held its own now for almost six decades.  Demand for the frame has risen and waned but always bounces back again.

After the Wayfarer’s™ explosion into the market through the 1950s and 60s, its popularity declined a bit in the 70s (when metal frames made their resurgence).  But, in the 1980s, the Blues Brothers, Tom Cruise (think Risky Business), and celebrities and musicians from every entertainment genre brought the frame back to the height of fashion.  If you remember the Don Henley song, Boys of Summer, from 1984 even Don had his, “hair slicked back and his Wayfarers™ on, baby….”

By 1989 Ray-Ban had taken the original two Wayfarer™ designs and expanded to 40 different Wayfarer™ styles.  Yet a few years later the Wayfarer™ fell from fame, again.  This time it lost the top spot to new wraparound styles and frames that were easier to wear and transport.  To keep up with the competition, Ray-Ban redesigned the Wayfarer™ with a lighter weight plastic and adjusted its shape so you could perch it on top of your head when you were out of the sun (the original design was too angled for that!).

This season, big, overdone or “chunky” black Wayfarer™ inspired styles are a must have for hipsters.  But, if you don’t consider yourself a trend-setter, the modernized versions of this classic frame are a still a great look.  Check out the entire selection of Ray-Ban Wayfarers™ and other vintage frames online or at your local America’s Best retailer.