Short Guide to Picking Eyeglass Frames for Older Women

Just because you’re a Woman of a Certain Age who wears glasses, you are not doomed to bifocals, glasses hung from chains around the neck and the pastel frames you bought for $40 back in 1988. Pick the right eyeglasses and frames and you could actually shave years off your look. Pick the wrong ones (or stick with the dated look you’ve adopted) and you can add years to your look.

In this slideshow, I share my favorite tips and tricks for choosing the right glasses for you, starting with Rule No. 1: black frames are universally flattering. Put a bad frame on magazine editor Evelina Khromchenko, pictured here, and she could actually look frumpy. But the frames she’s chosen tell us she’s a classy, sophisticated woman who follows fashion trends. The frames are over-sized and a bit cat-eye and look great on her. To get away with this look, keep jewelry and other accessories to a minimum.

The trendiest glasses frames at the moment are made by Warby Parker. Check out the Warby Parker Website.

The Perfect Glasses if You Don’t Want People to Notice You’re Wearing Glasses

If you wear glasses every day, consider your glasses your best fashion accessory. You wouldn’t wear the same exact scarf every day would you? No, you’d change it up. So you may consider changing up your look when it comes to glasses, too.

The late author Charla Krupp writes about glasses in her book, “How Not to Look Old,” (buy it from Amazon). She recommends keeping 3 pair on hand: One for the work day, one for evenings and one for weekends. This is a great idea. Since so many people I know dress casually for both work and evenings, I suggest getting 3 very different pair that will work well with your outfits

Here, Annette Bening is in “nerd glasses,” those thick black frames that have become increasingly popular over the past 4 years (or so). You can see how her look is instantly transformed from the previous picture, just because of a change in frames.

When choosing glasses you should consider 3 things:

• Your face shape;
• Your hair color;
• Your personality.

Dump the Chain.

Krupp advises women to never wear glasses on a chain. It’s aging and screams you are no longer 30 or even 40 or even 45. See what other things you might be doing to age yourself unnecessarily in “Are Your Makeup and Hair Aging You?”