The stands at a professional tennis tournament like the US Open, currently underway, are prime people-watching real estate. One is likely to spot Hollywood royalty mingling with actual nobility, all clad in chic preppy attire. It’s like a game of celebrity I Spy, but it’s admittedly very beige. The attendees are exciting, but the scene is not known for adventurous fashion. One can, however, toe the line between court and camp, and it only takes a single accessory. But beware: Oliver Goldsmith’s 1985 Tennis Racquets glasses are for style pros only.
Decades before Zendaya broke the Internet in 2024 with her Loewe tennis-ball heels, renowned eyewear designer Oliver Goldsmith took a similarly whimsical approach to the sport with this pair of sunnies. Both functional and surreal, the frames echo the classic tennis-club motif of two rackets crossed diagonally at the shafts, their handles stretching up onto the wearer’s forehead. The rims encircling the blue-tinted lenses mimic racket heads, complete with “strings” in a grid pattern. The glasses were originally sold with gridless lenses that could be swapped out by an optician, but the lines add that extra wink that Goldsmith’s designs are famous for.
A native Londoner, Goldsmith established his business in 1926. Through his audacious approach to design, he is credited with popularizing eyeglasses as accessories that are not just practical but stylish. “Goldsmith was one of the true pioneers of modern eyewear design,” says Jantie Vis, of the Amsterdam eyewear gallery Nightwings, which is offering this pair on 1stDibs. “His bold creativity and outstanding craftsmanship are what make his glasses so timeless and collectible.”
Nightwings, which has been carefully collecting Goldsmith eyewear for the past 20 years, is in good company. This rare 1985 model is a redesign of racquet glasses from 1956, and both models are in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s holdings of more than 60 pairs of frames by the designer. If the V&A’s version tugs at your racquet strings, fear not: They’re also available on 1stDibs.
Whether you recognize his name or not, you are familiar with Goldsmith’s designs from their cameos in popular culture. From Audrey Hepburn’s oversize frames in the titular scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s to John Lennon’s round wire-framed specs and Grace Kelly’s futuristic shades, Goldsmith is responsible for some of the most famous glasses of the 20th century. The “crown jewels” of his client roster were none other than (then) Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, both of whom wore Goldsmith glasses during numerous public appearances. Princess Diana was a fixture in the stands at Wimbledon and wore Goldsmith’s Berwick frames to the tournament at least twice in the 1980s.
Although the princess took plenty of fashion risks in her day, she didn’t go so far as to don Goldsmith’s racquet-shaped sunglasses, which would have been, to put it in tennis terms, an unforced error. The world probably wasn’t ready for such a sensational match anyway. But if a fashionista with fewer royal restrictions wore these to the US Open today, endless Honey Deuce toasts would surely be made in their honor.
