A rare find, Oliver Goldsmith’s alluring Yuhu wraparound frames are the pinnacle of avant-garde eyewear, as radical today as they were when they were produced, in the 1960s. A design famously worn by Audrey Hepburn on the poster for Stanley Donen’s 1967 film Two for the Road, these supermodern sunglasses capture the moment eyewear exploded as a fashion accessory.
Of course, Hollywood had always embraced chic, dark-lensed glasses as protection from the blazing Los Angeles sun and photographers’ flashbulbs. By the 1920s and ’30s, the eyewear had hit the mass market, and film fans and fashionistas alike were enthusiastically emulating their idols.
“Wearing the same sunglasses model as your favorite actor or character brings you closer to that silver-screen dream,” says eyewear collector Jantie Vis, who’s offering a 1966 pair of the sleek frames through his shop, Nightwings, on 1stDibs. “You can put on your vintage Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses, hail a cab in New York City and have an Audrey Hepburn moment.”
The 1960s was a time of revolution in eyewear. The introduction of new materials and innovative molding methods launched a design era dominated by supersize sunglasses and fantastical, curvaceous forms. Eyewear had become art.
Initially developed as protective gear for drivers and sportsmen, wraparound sunglasses encompassed a range of 1960s fashion obsessions: speed, futurism, jet-setting, the power of plastic. On Hepburn’s beautiful face, the sleek white Yuhu became the signifier of luxe leisure.
A precursor to the oversize frames emblazoned with designer logos that would dominate eyewear styles of the 1970s and ’80s, the Yuhu helped make the market for luxury eyewear, providing “a chic shield against the sun and a fashion statement,” as Vis notes. “A real and attainable fantasy.”
