Why Expensive Sunglasses Might Make More Sense


You can pick up a pair of cheap sunglasses for $10 and not stress about losing them, but is that the best way to invest your money? Fashion blogger and novelist Maggie Alderson argues that you’re better off spending money on a well-designed expensive pair, because you’ll be both happier with how they look and less likely to misplace them.

Alderson notes that despite committing to a “cheap and cheerful” sunglasses strategy, she ended up spending more than £100 for half-a-dozen pairs in the course of a year and still felt none of them looked satisfactory. Conversely, a pair which cost north of £250 delivered the goods, and also made her more careful about not losing them:

I’m absolutely mad about them and whenever I put them on I feel like a film star and because they were so expensive, every time I take them off I carefully put them back in their neat protective case. I will never buy cheap sunglasses again.

That attitude may well reflect Alderson’s fashion roots. We’ve argued in the past that cheap sunglasses can be just as good in quality terms, but that doesn’t really take into account how they look. And there is something to be said for investing in one-off quality items rather than constantly ditching cheapies.

My own sunglasses strategy is different again. I usually buy cheap ones and I still end up losing them, so for the past year I’ve just given up on wearing sunglasses altogether. We’ll see if that strategy survives the summer, but it does cut down on what I have to carry.

Where do you sit in the sunglasses debate? Tell us in the comments, and remember in the meantime, if you do need to grab a misshapen pair of old sunnies for emergency use, you can do that with a hot water bath.

I’m not rich enough to buy cheap sunglasses [Style Notes]


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