Jurassic World Rebirth may be the most anticipated film of the summer, but it’s not the dinosaurs that are piquing our attention. Images of its star, Jonathan Bailey, in character wearing a pair of tiny metal-frame spectacles are breaking the internet. But is it Dr Henry Loomis or the frames themselves that are causing the hysteria?
Commonly referred to as “slutty little glasses” on X, along with Drew Starkey as Eugene in Queer and Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher in Reacher, Bailey’s professor specs are suddenly everywhere. From Ace & Tate to Calvin Klein and Gentle Monster, small wire frames are dominating the high street.
What’s their appeal? Will O’Connor, retail merchandising director at EssilorLuxottica (which owns Ray-Ban, Oakley, and Persol) describes them as “barely there” specs, and puts their popularity down to comfort, being unisex “and cultural icons such as John Lennon”, who wore smaller frames. Bestsellers include Ray-Ban’s round wire frames in silver and a rectangular version in polished gold.
Bailey’s glasses – which are titanium, weigh seven grams and are made by Cubitts – are just one of many styles that are selling well, says founder Tom Broughton.
“They’re referencing a style and type of construction that has been around for 300 years,” he says. “But they’re also very much updated to how [those in] the modern world would wear a pair of spectacles.” All glasses used to be wire-frame.
“There’s nothing else that combines the idea of optics, physics, medicine, but also status, style, identity and personality,” he says.
Commentator and streamer Hasan Piker is known for his political videos, including streaming from the Democratic National Convention last year, but has reached a new audience via fan edits of him often going viral on TikTok wearing Japanese wire-frame glasses.
Piker says his are as much about aesthetics as anything else. “I was very embarrassed to wear glasses my whole life, [but] I guess I’ve grown more comfortable and in the process I realised that it’s not just about helping you see, but instead it is also something that you can make a fashion statement around,” he says.
Piker often switches up his glasses, though he feels round wire frames are mainstays in his collection and complement his angular, bearded face. “I think everyone has a different facial structure and mine happens to suit the round spectacles quite well,” he says.
On why they’ve made Bailey (even more) irresistible, Broughton says “a wire frame definitely lends well to people that are naturally beautiful, as you can see a lot of their face. They’re more difficult to hide behind.” Smaller glasses leave little to the imagination, adding a layer to be removed even though we know what’s underneath. In a sense, they are like jewellery or lingerie.
Bailey’s bespectacled handsome professor archetype follows on from Harrison Ford, who swooned in and out of the classroom as Indiana Jones (with a student writing ‘LOVE YOU’ on her eyelids for him) and Oscar Isaac as a college professor in Scenes from a Marriage. Nor is fancying professor types new, according to Reddit’s online community . Conversely, they make Jack Reacher appear less intimidating, more cerebral and add vulnerability to a stereotypically hyper-masculine appearance.
The last time a pair of glasses had this cultural currency was during the 00s when thick-rimmed “nerdy” glasses dominated the internet linked to the tattooed, beanie-clad, hipster rulers of youth culture.
Research has shown that glasses can impact on perceived trustworthiness and, depending on the frame, attractiveness.
Glasses-as-plot-device isn’t new in female characters, with Rachael Leigh Cook’s character in She’s All That, and Anne Hathaway’s in The Princess Diaries both undergoing transformations when they remove their specs.
At Paris fashion week, Miu Miu gave their Hitchcockian models small spectacles following on from their previous librarian-esque spectacled outings on the catwalk in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, Vogue claimed The Sexiest Thing You Can Wear Right Now Is A Pair Of Prescription Specs, citing Julia Fox and Bella Hadid as instrumental in this fashionable shift.
The Austin-based botanical educator and consultant Matthew Gaston is another academic using spectacles to capture hearts and minds with his entertaining videos about botany.
“I selected the more thin wire frames as it matched my leather jackets and waxed canvas bags – almost like 1930s adventurer attire,” says Gaston, who wears low-cost pairs from Zenni.
“I would prefer not to wear glasses, but these are the cards I have been dealt.”
