Menswear's rerun of That '70s Show has been less 'freak out', more 'the fine art of Ancient Mesopotamia: an introduction'. For while the likes of Tom Ford have long favoured Studio 54 sexiness, an easier (and subtler) way into the trend has been abetted by the relaxed, cleaner, geekier lecturer garms of Brunello Cucinelli, Ralph Lauren and Tod's: the university lecturer to launch a thousand hearts by getting his words mixed-up and his passions inflamed by dusty old bits of cracked pottery.
Of course, trends only require a quiet nod. You're no doubt much cooler than said professor. So that means you left the aviator-framed jam jars (that he was forever pushing up and down his nose) well alone. Melodic Wolverine superhero Hugh Jackman, however, has other plans.
At the Montblanc HB01 launch in New York, The Greatest Showman turned out to be the greatest necromancer, reviving aviator spectacles from their bookish grave and proving that yes, the Seventies trend is inclusive and warm and all-embracing – even of the nerdier ephemera from Cornell University circa 1973.
Such spectacles haven't always enjoyed good press. But along with soft flares, stripes-on-stripes and louche safari jackets, aviator spectacles are, officially, cool again. It helps if you've the bone structure to pull off big boxy frames. It also helps if you skirt on the smaller side. Big glasses require big confidence. And, if your sight is of a particularly shoddy quality, industrial-grade prescriptions can make minute pupils fill the entire lens – and there's a lot to fill here. Nobody wants to look like a computer programmer in the days when computer programmers were never seen beyond their mum's box room.
But we do want to look like Hugh Jackman. And with a proper Hollywood star pulling the fringes of Seventies eyewear into the mainstream, it's an unexpected, welcome, refreshing way to upgrade your specs (and something that follows the resurgence of actual aviator sunglasses, which are far more ubiquitous). So crank up Time Team, slide your specs on, and indulge your inner Classics grad with wild, reckless, unashamed abandon.
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