From High-Tech Specs to 1970s Acetate: 15 Pairs of Men’s Sunglasses for Every Level of Vanity

The face is having a bit of a hardware problem. Somewhere between the Ray-Ban that films your friends and the pair that darkens at the swipe of a temple, sunglasses stopped being simple eye protection and became a judgment call about how much machinery a man is willing to wear between lunch and sunset. The chasm is easy to spot. One camp has retreated into featherweight titanium, rimless lenses and frames that nearly vanish from view. The other has gone back to the thick, squared acetate of the 1970s, letting the eyewear do the heavy lifting in an otherwise ordinary outfit.

The real story is how much territory now lies between those poles. A pair can cost less than dinner or more than a month’s rent, and the irritating part is that either extreme can—kind of—make sense. The Ray-Ban Aviator has survived nearly a century because nobody has improved on the proportions. Cartier offers a frame whose exposed screws refer to a 1904 watch made for an aviator over Paris. Elsewhere, a Swedish label and a materials-science startup are contending that the future of eyewear lives in the lens, not the frame. Below, the full spread, from the folding heirloom pick you keep for decades to the electrochromic gadget you always forget to charge. Fifteen pairs, each worth the most visible real estate you own.