August 11, 2006 - Glasses Grande

Here’s a prediction from Ed. Years from now when you’re watching reruns of “That Turn of The Century Show”, all of the young girl characters will have short skirts, tight, layered tops, straight hair, and big sunglasses. And when people go to “zero’s” parties, big sunglasses will be an instant dress-up accessory that will turn any outfit into one that fits the theme.

Big sunglasses are a big trend. It’s all for fashion. Cheekbones and eyebrows don’t need that extra shaded UV protection for normal life functions. The extra shade on the side can only be seen as decorative. The big glasses cover up so much face, that there aren’t many features left exposed to help identify the person behind them. It’s “you are what you wear” taken to the next level.

Yesterday, the dedicated staff of edhat.com went down to State Street and Paseo Nuevo to observe the big spectacle trend. We saw women, young and old, with sunglasses big and small. We saw many examples of the, tight, layered tops, big shades look. We even saw a couple of girls greet each other with the phrase, “I didn’t recognize you!”

We also noted that a large percentage of the super-sized eyewear crowd was talking on the phone. Why is it, the dedicated staff wanted to know, that all of the young women we saw on State Street yesterday wearing those trendy extra large sunglasses were on the phone? Let’s think about it. Who would call all of them just ‘cause they’re wearing big glasses – the fashion police?

The contest yesterday was to guess the percentage of woman wearing big shades. Of course what is big and what isn't is in eyes of the beholder. For the contest we trusted our dedicated beholding eyes to make the determination. And, of course it wasn’t easy. There were many gray shady areas where big could have just been bold, or even just not small. Many glasses were big because the rims were thick plastic. We counted them. Other glasses were wide, but not tall. We didn’t count them.

As with many of the surveys we do on State Street, a lot of our data yesterday came from less trendy demographic groups – you know, older people. It’s hard enough to draw a firm line between big and small, the line between young and old is even more difficult, especially in this town were fooling mother nature (or just ignoring it) is a full time profession for some.

So, as we walked down State Street we counted women from all walks of life. At the end of the day we found that 36% of women were wearing big shades. In yesterday’s contest, multiple winner Mud was the only one to guess a perfect 36. Mud wins a new t-shirt. And, if you’re not wearing glasses - here’s mud in your eye!

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