Today, we have newspapers, such as T2(Telegraph 2), and magazines dedicated to the lives of celebrities. Where they are going out to party, what they are eating, where they are eating, their relationships, and mostly importantly, the style they are donning at the moment. Fashion designers and leading brands are working incessantly to emulate the apparel of celebrities and walk an extra mile when it comes to their sale in the markets.
A good many years back, we had Amitabh Bachchan’s Bell Bottom pants and his haircut, Rajesh Khanna’s Guru Punjabis and Dev Anand’s style of tying a scarf around your neck. These trends have manifested themselves on a larger scale today. The clothes that celebrities wear and the accessories they carry off, or do not, have influenced buying trends like never before. Handbags had always been in vogue but we now see a magnificent popularity which sunglasses have been successful in acquiring. They stand for the world of glamour, providing a piece of their lives into the craving hands of the fanatic masses. Sunglasses, today, are extremely influential when it comes to the fashion industry.
It is the full-time job of celebrities to look like a thousand bucks at all times and never do they disappoint you. They make sure that their sunglasses match with the clothes they wear and ensure their anonymity as well. We have seen Lady Gaga, David Beckham, Rihanna, Kate Moss, Gwyneth Paltrow and the other stalwarts of their fields carrying off sunglasses with all the élan they could muster. From cat-eye frames to neo-noir glasses, from mirrored Ray Ban aviators to trendy wayfarers, they have it all! These celebrities can afford the best sunglasses to have ever been made, setting down a set-line to distinguish themselves from the masses.
Top fashion designers, all masters at their skill, produce a wide array of designer sunglasses, all expensive, attractive and needless to say, trend-setting. As they walk down the red carpet, or any carpet of any award show for that matter, our eyes follow their accessories, and mostly, what hides their reverting gazes- sunglasses, no doubt provoking us to hunt down our department stores for the same pair the next day. We want what they don. Celebrities act as human billboards. They simply need to wear the sunglasses given to them by top-notch fashion designers and their promotion of the brand is complete. They give rise to a massive scale of emulation and the public reaching out for the very designs.
There is a rule when it comes to these sunglasses: age no bar. People of any age can wear a pair which suits them as the variety is mind-boggling. From bold colours and designs, to creative shapes, designers have sunglasses that match each criteria. If a celebrity wears it, the fan would want it too. This arises from a deep-rooted sense of hero worship and envy. We had the ‘maxi-dress wave’ from several celebrities of Hollywood. It is the same with sunglasses. To some, a design might be outright ridiculous and funny. However, a fashion designer will never eradicate the possibility of a fan somewhere in the corners of the world who shall crave it like a diabetes-infected person who craves sucrose. Sunglasses are an important accessory to complete a star’s look and they seem to pull off any design at all times. Each celebrity has a personal favourite, creating a fashion statement of sorts for the celebrity and what they are pulling off at the moment. Fans, needless to say, give a boost to these designers by the sheer act of emulation and a keen desire to emulate them.
The wearing of a particular product by a particular celebrity gives rise to a cycle. Celebrities will always wear designer sunglasses. They are the heart-throbs of many, who in turn would want to buy them, and make the same into a fashion statement. The companies will earn a name for themselves a result of this. Based on the popularity of the designer, the prices of the sunglasses shall be decided. One should always keep in mind while buying sunglasses that these sunglasses come with a heavy price tag. One should buy them not just because their favourite celebrity is wearing them, but because they really do want to wear them and can pull them off well.
As long as we carry on your age-old tradition of looking up to celebrities, there will be celebrity sunglasses. By virtue of individuality, each celebrity has their own sense of fashion, thereby giving rise to a large number of celebrity sunglasses for you to choose from. Consequently, you, the customer, are spoilt for choice. Many like to don the oversized glares while the rest prefer to go with smaller shades. Celebrity glasses definitely have that element of glitz which sets them apart from ordinary sunglasses. The thing about celebrity sunglasses is that they keep changing every year. Newer and better models keep getting doled out and they are donned by our favourite celebrities first. To each his own opinion, we like to emulate our favourite celebrities and like to think that we are probably exuding a fraction of their persona while donning their style statements.
Celebrities use sunglasses more for show than for function. And this is something that the famous brands take advantage of. All of the major fashion designers produce sunglasses which are exorbitantly priced. There’s no second guessing the fact that these sunglasses are exquisitely crafted and exclusive, but that hardly seems a justification where the price exceeds its weight in gold.
These manufacturing companies scramble among themselves to offer these sunglasses to celebrities on a complimentary basis, being completely aware of the fact that it will be tremendous advertisement for them and that there could be no better product placement. Once people see their favourite celebrities donning these sunglasses, it is quite normal to expect that they will go hunting for these same sunglasses all over town. The fact of the matter remains that as long as we have the culture of celebrity deification, there will be celebrity sunglasses.
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