Eyewear as a Style Signature
Freelance writer Kathleen Hale had a great interview with Fran Lebowitz a few years ago, which was published online at Elle Magazine. The two met at the illustrious diner-style restaurant Burger Heaven in New York City, where Lebowitz laid down some pretty grumpy pronouncements about today’s fashion while drinking a large soda. Supposedly, yoga pants are ruining women, platform shoes embody everything that’s wrong with the youth, and all men look atrocious in shorts. It’s the kind of harrumphing that usually turns me off, but somehow comes off charming here. Perhaps it’s because Lebowitz herself is known for her distinctive sense of style, which doesn’t at all conform to traditional rules. She pairs softly structured Anderson & Sheppard sport coats, cut like they were built for an NYC financier or editor in the 1980s, with straight legged jeans, white French cuff shirts, almond-toe cowboy boots, and two gold rings. Regarding her signature tortoiseshell glasses, she said:
I feel very strongly that almost the entire city has copied my glasses. I went to a fashion show during fashion week, and everyone there had on my eyeglasses. Warby Parker has also copied my eyeglasses. Here’s what started happening: A few years ago, kids – and by which I mean, my friends’ kids – started coming up to me and saying, ‘Fran, where’d you get those vintage glasses?’ And I said, 'They’re not vintage. I’ve just owned them for a long time. They are vintage in the way I am.'
Like everything she wears, Lebowitz’s glasses are custom made, but take after something she picked up eons ago when she first developed her style. Her white dress shirts, for example, are made by the British shirtmaker Hilditch & Key, but designed after something she previously bought at Brooks Brothers – at least before the company discontinued the model. (She groused: “If you’re going to discontinue an item that thousands and thousands of people buy, announce it. Say, ‘We will no longer be making our excellent Brooks Brothers cotton shirts that we made for 5,000 years. We’re going to change them in some awful way. We’re alerting you so you can buy a lifetime supply.’”). Similarly, she says her oversized frames are an attempt to "recover what she once had,” and of everything in her wardrobe, these were the most expensive. She refused to reveal how much she paid for them, but when pressed, admitted they ran her about as much money as one would pay for a car.
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