Round vintage glasses – the timeless classics of eye wear

The round shape of the glasses is the original frame shape. If you look at antique glasses, you will always find round metal frames. Nearly everyone knows the so-called “nickel glasses”.

Famous personalities of contemporary history wore these round metal glasses, among them Sigmund Freund, Robert Koch and Mahatma Ghandi. What’s more, there were already round rimless glasses at that time. Probably the most famous wearer of such round rimless glasses was Max Planck.

In addition, there were round metal glasses, which were also very simply constructed (so-called wire frame spectacles), but in the geometric sense they were rather oval than round. Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Spitzweg and Franz Schubert wore oval wire glasses like these.

Beside the round nickel-glasses, the so-called pince-nez glasses were still widespread in the 19th century. These are glasses do not have brackets and are clamped on the nose. This is why you can also frequently find them being referred to as “C-bridge” or “Oxford spectacles”. Gustav Mahler, Theodore Roosevelt, Émile Zola, Fritz Haber and Wassily Kandinsky wore such pince-nez glasses.

In the course of the 20th century, however, the round shape of spectacles became more and more popular and was constantly refined.

From vision aids to designer glasses

Frames began to be gold-plated because the high nickel content often caused allergies or a gold-doublé was used as eyeglass material. In addition, the round glasses were fitted with nose pads and flexible brackets to allow a more individual fit.

Later, the frames were optimised not only with regard to their functionality and fit, but also with regard to individual design elements. The round metal frames were partly covered with plastic (so-called Windsor rings) or completely made of plastics such as cellulose acetate (so-called cell frames).

When talking about round glasses and their development, John Lennon should of course be mentioned. The British musician made the round shape of his glasses his trademark and “John Lennon eyeglasses” has become synonymous with “round glasses”.
We have also dedicated an extra category to John Lennon in our glasses range, where a variety of round glasses can be found: not only the original John Lennon Collection, but also round glasses from Algha or Savile Row.

Under the definition “round” we have pooled further, approximately round-shaped vintage sunglasses of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. For instance, elliptical to half-round frames.

Round

Round - an evergreen

From the typical John Lennon “Look” to the classic, oval-shaped forms, you can here find many different, roughly round-shaped sunglasses designs. The circle shape goes back to the beginnings of the glasses' history.
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