Prepare For Brighter Days: 2022 Sunglasses Trends ft Kimeze

Picking the perfect pair of sunnies is a sport like no other. The endless options for eye protection are overwhelming. There’s a procedure to choosing a frame that suits your features, that’s striking and eye-catching yet will go with every outfit you wear for the next few months. Sure, what’s trendy will influence your decision, but the choice feels more personal than other trend-driven purchases. You stare into the store’s tiny mirrors to check if the silhouette compliments your face shape, feels comfortable, and makes you look good – a fact made a lot harder by the instant darkness experienced wearing sunnies under corporate, fluorescent light. 

Kimeze, a unisex eyewear brand launched in October 2021, design handcrafted frames to fit the faces of their customers. They have a simple but significant aim as the world’s first company to design eyewear for Black and brown faces. Founders Clare and Christina Kimeze were unable to find fashionable glasses to fit them well. As time went on, they noticed that many of their family and friends seemed to have the same problem and were shocked to discover that this is a well known but unaddressed issue within the optical industry. Eyewear is not designed to fit Black faces. Kimeze was going to fix this and create gorgeous, practical eyewear.

With the help of Clare Kimeze, we’ve rounded up somewhat trending sunglasses styles, with five general pointers on how the internet’s most fashionable faces are protecting their eyes. 

Like seemingly everything this decade, sunglasses trends for 2022 are all about nostalgia. This longing, aided by the popularity of dopamine dressing and other like-minded trends, will undoubtedly urge in a bounty of colourful and expressive frames adorning the faces of the most fashionable. The mentality for fashion and accessories at the moment appears to be ‘anything goes’. Nothing is too outlandish or too casual. This idea has heralded the resurgence of a few eyewear trends some may be surprised to see, and some may wish they never did see. 

Elongated Eyes

While no one specific silhouette dominates the market this season, striking, elongated frames are having a moment. We’re talking about small, soft edge rectangles and flattened ovals, over harsh squares and oversized circles to uplift the face rather than hide it away. It’s not really a surprise we want to draw out the shape of our eye protection as the fox eye trend and the myriad of eyebrow lift surgery before and after continues to convince us all to wing out that liner and contour our temples. These frames may be slimmed down, but they’re still chunky and angular, making a statement with very little material balancing on your nose.

In the same vein, traditional cat-eye frames have had a 2022 makeover to make the lenses broader and less rounded. The cat-eye now boasts dramatic, pointed corners, emphasised by slim, flattened lenses. Clare promises, “cat-eye frames are flattering for nearly all face shapes and are always very much on-trend.”

Tints

No matter the shape of your frames, bright and bold colours, ranging from pastels to neons to jewel tones, are the way to make a statement this summer. Clare says, “everything ’90s is back – including coloured sunglasses. Neon brights especially are one of the top trends in luxury fashion for spring/summer 2022.”

To emphasise your frame of choice, tinted lenses are another sure-fire trend for 2022 that will elevate not only your look but also the way you see. Whether you opt for super-saturated or subtle, you get a gorgeous phone-free filter over your day that works with any frames of your choosing. You can go monochrome, with your lens matching your frames, you can juxtapose colours, or you can spice up neutral frames with an eye-catching pop. Powerhouse brands like Gucci and Versace gravitated towards red and fiery-orange lens tints on their 2022 runways. These tones seem to be the hottest lens colours right now.

A Seventies Sensibility

The seventies continue to permeate our lives, little by little. This time, we’re seeing the comeback of aviators – not the pilot-esque style everyone seemed to own in 2012. These frames are almost comically oversized aviators, using acetate (plastic-like) frames and overly rounded lenses reminiscent of woodstock styles. The silhouette, even if clearly rectangular, features curved edges and, opposite to the cat eye, drops down at the bottom, outer corner. Styles like these with larger lenses will have you looking your best and seeing your best, as the sun protection they offer is unmatched.  

To play further into the seventies inspiration, Clare recommends frames in chocolate brown hues, “chocolate brown is the colour of the season and so chic against brown skin. It will take you seamlessly right through summer and all the way into autumn.” 

Back To The Future

While our collective pining for times gone by hasn’t waned, the future is weighing heavy on our minds. Here, the two longings interject to birth a trend none of us could have seen coming—archetectrial, sporty sunnies. We’re really taking the idea of so-uncool-it’s-cool to the extreme with this one. You’ll know you’ve got the idea down when the frames you pick resemble what people in the 80’s thought we’d be wearing in the 2020s to drive our hoverboards. 

These futuristic, sporty sunnies, affectionately called shield shades or speed dealer sunnies, can range in style from your classic, super-sleek, wrap-around ‘dad’ sunglasses to designs that wouldn’t be out of place in the metaverse. While Kimeze doesn’t yet offer a sporty style, Clare loves the polarising trend and can’t wait to incorporate designs inspired by it into the Kimeze collection.

Y2K

Did you think you would get through a trend-focused report in this decade without reading the word Y2K? No one for a second thought this trend revival wouldn’t impact the sunnies we’re wearing this year. We’ve seen mini lenses, laser-cut flame lenses, and statement, minimalist takes on the Y2K era when it came to eyewear. However, the impracticality of these microtrends means we’ve moved on. For the ultimate Y2K-inspired style this year, opt for rimless designs or thin, delicate metal frames doused in colour. Think, the Matrix meets Clueless. Ignore mini lenses and ensure you get sufficient eye protection with lenses that cover the eye. That’s the real reason we’re all wearing sunnies, to protect our vision as we step into brighter days. 

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