Gold and black round glasses

Gold round sunglasses with a closed metal rim

Two circles of gold-toned metal and two lenses dark enough to read as black: that is the whole of the front. What holds each lens here is a closed metal ring rather than a clamp at the edge, and the bridge between them carries the chain-link relief that reappears further along each arm.

What a closed rim changes

Plenty of sunglasses grip the lens on a screw and leave the rest of the edge bare, so the shape you read at a distance is the cut of the glass. Here the metal does that job instead. It stands slightly proud of the lens as a fine raised lip of metal, picks up light on its own account, and is what meets the table when the pair is set down front first. A circle also stays a circle: the outline belongs to the frame, not to the tint behind it.

What the close-ups show

Wearing a round frame

Round is a shape people notice, so it does better with an outfit that stays quiet underneath it. Gold and black are the only two tones on the pair, which makes that easy: nothing here argues with a navy coat or a white shirt. Squares and wide fronts sit very differently on the same face, though, and that difference is hard to picture from memory. It is worth a look at which rims are closed and which are not before you settle on one.

Because the frame stops high on the face, the eye drops straight to the neckline. Wear it with a scarf in a single colour and the gold stays the brightest thing above the collar.