“The bespectacled face asks the world to see it a certain way by telling the world something about how it is seen”

More intimate than underpants precisely because they are plain for all to see, eyeglasses are no mere detail of costume. Acting as a mask that fuses with the features, glasses serve as a spotlight or a proscenium arch or a stage for the soul in the theater of everyday life. The bespectacled face asks the world to see it a certain way by telling the world something about how it is seen.

Troy Patterson, “On Clothing”, New York Times Magazine (14 June 2015), 22.