Large black and gold glasses

Lenses that give nothing away

The tint holds one strength right across the lens, with no lighter band down near the cheek. Look at someone wearing this pair and you will not find their eyes; what you read instead is the outline, a broad front with a straight lower edge and corners that rise towards the temple. That is the trade this shape makes, and it is worth knowing before you choose it: evenly tinted lenses put all the expression back into the frame, whereas graduated ones leave a little of the face showing.

Why these black and gold-tone sunglasses fold so flat

The slim gold-tone temples are drawn in metal rather than moulded in plastic, so they fold in close against the back of the lenses instead of standing proud of them. The pair then lies almost flat, front down, and takes up far less room in a bag than its width suggests. Not every shape behaves that way, which matters if you carry your sunglasses more often than you wear them; the pairs that fold down flat are the ones to look at first.

Everything the camera actually shows

A hinge detail that reads like jewellery

The little fan sitting where the temple meets the front is the one ornament on the whole pair, and it behaves less like a frame finish than like a brooch pinned at the temple. Pale points pick up the light as the head turns. Because the rest of the pair stays plain, that single piece of polished gold-tone metal is what the eye keeps returning to, and it sits well alongside anything worked in the same warm metal tone.