The serious dresser, in our experience, owns three pairs of sunglasses and wears them in rotation for years. Each pair has its register, its day, its world. Beyond three, the collection becomes a hobby. Below three, it becomes a uniform. Three is the right number.
In brief
- Three pairs cover the full grammar of dressing for the sun: the Daily, the Holiday, the Statement.
- The Daily is classic tortoise, worn five days a week: the Wall Street or the Gatsby.
- The Holiday wears a coloured lens for the lighter half of the year: the Le Pirate or the Cuba Hemingway.
- The Statement carries the look once a week: the Sofia British Green or the Le Mans Champion Gold.
- Buy them in that order, months apart, and let each settle before the next.
The Daily.
This is the frame you wear five days a week. Classic, quiet, non-decorative. It must look correct with a navy blazer, a white shirt, and a pair of trousers in any colour. A pantos or a square in havana tortoise is the safe choice. The Wall Street Boho Turtle and the Gatsby Vintage Turtle are the two cleanest editions of this category in the Berenford collection. Either will serve you, with no register clash, in a city, on a working terrace, and at any restaurant short of black tie.
The Holiday.
This is the frame for the lighter half of the year, the harbour-town pair, the one that comes out for a long lunch in Portofino or a morning on a sailboat. A lighter mood, a coloured lens. The Le Pirate Marine Blue, a round frame in crystal acetate with a marine blue lens, and the Cuba Hemingway, a double-bridge aviator in spotted tortoise with a lilac lens, are both in this register. The frame says holiday before any photograph does.
The Statement.
The third pair is the one with personality. It is not for daily wear. It is for the dinner where you want the frame to do half the work of the look. A cat-eye for the woman, an aviator or an architectural square for the man. The Sofia British Green, a cat-eye in deep green acetate with a grey lens, and the Le Mans Champion Gold, an aviator in light tortoise with a gold mirror lens, are the two clearest examples in the collection. Wear them once a week, not every day, and they become part of how you are remembered.
Why three.
Because two leaves you exposed when one is in the case at the optician. Because four becomes indecisive. Because three gives you the daily, the holiday, and the statement, and that is the full grammar of how a thoughtful person dresses for the sun.
How to buy them.
Not all at once. Start with the daily. Wear it for six months, learn the way an acetate frame settles to the face, learn how the OBE hinge feels after a year of use. Then add the holiday in spring. The statement comes last, because it must answer the daily, not contradict it.
Each Berenford model is a limited edition of 100. A three-pair wardrobe, well chosen, becomes part of the personal record: a signature in acetate, repeated softly, the way a man has signed his name for forty years.
The Editor, Berenford