The story of “John Lennon's disobedient glasses” worn by everyone from Trotsky to Harrison Ford

41 years ago Yoko Ono took the photograph of the end of a collective dream.

It featured the most recognizable glasses in history, stained with blood, placed next to a glass of water that was clearly half empty.

As a backdrop, the hazy view of the trees of Central Park behind and the recognizable Manhattan skyline.

The artist was still in the Dakota building where Mark David Chapman had just murdered John Lennon and that photo (which later illustrated her album

Season of Glass

, published in 1981) became a relic of hers.

In the symbol of the violent end of something bigger than the most famous musician in history: a saint of pop culture, a symbol of pacifism and the hippie ideal.

From that world, without countries, without heaven or hell, or wars or religions that an entire generation imagined.

The kind of life she wanted to see Lennon through her round lens glasses.

Today the rebellious spirit of those glasses continues to be a recognized simile: a few days ago the political scientist and co-founder of Podemos Juan Carlos Monedero – who wears lenses very similar to those of the artist – cited in X his “disobedient Lennon glasses” (and with they implied his way of seeing and understanding things) as the reason for his umpteenth breakup with Pablo Iglesias.

Here we review the history, symbolism and curiosities about this type of glasses, which began as a piece of craftsmanship in Germany, became the most popular in England, and became the most recognizable element of the man “more famous than Jesus.” and end up being an adjective in themselves.

Yoko Ono - Season Of Glass - Vintage vinyl album coverAlamy Stock / CORDON PRESS

At first, Lennon did not wear glasses.

Despite having significant myopia (his prescription was -8.25 in the right eye and -7.50 in the left, according to an analysis he did at the 2019 St Paul's Eye Unit), he spent years wearing contact lenses. .

The first time he showed himself with his iconic round wire lenses was in Spain: specifically in Almería, where he filmed Richard Lester's film

How I Won the War

, based on the 1963 novel written by Patrick Ryan, a black comedy in the who played a soldier named Gripweed.

The film passed unnoticed, but Lennon found himself comfortable with these Windsor-frame glasses for which he would be recognized throughout the world.

John Lennon, as a British soldier in the 1967 film 'How I Won the War'.John Springer Collection (Corbis via Getty Images)

Those black acetate glasses were made of coiled metal wire.

Traditional Windsor glasses feature a circular wire frame, round lenses and a saddle-shaped bridge, also known as a W bridge and which sits directly on the nose, without nose pads (these arrived in the 1920s and glasses were common since 1880).

Because of their small, rounded shape, they are also called 'tea glasses' or

teashades

in English.

After the film, Lennon began wearing this style of glasses, specifically the

Panto 45

model from the London manufacturer Algha Works, today known as Savile Row, the oldest in the United Kingdom.

Since 1932, the factory has produced wire frames using late 19th century machinery from a factory in Rathenow, Germany, founded in 1898 by Max Wiseman, who created the company in 1898. In 2020 the headquarters moved to Italy, where They continue to be made by hand and with 18-karat gold frames.

Some of Lennon's glasses, exhibited in Berlin in 2017, after being recovered by the German police following a robbery suffered by Yoko Ono in New York, in which several of the couple's personal items were stolen.MAURIZIO GAMBARINI (DPA/AFP via Getty Images )

At their peak, Algha made 1.5 million frames a year as part of the NHS's free glasses scheme and employed up to 150 people before Margaret Thatcher discontinued the scheme in 1988. In addition to Lennon, among His famous clients were Elizabeth II, Sean Connery, Daniel Radcliffe in the

Harry Potter saga,

Harrison Ford in

Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark,

Denzel Washington and Johnny Depp.

Soon, Lennon tried the orange tint, a shade customized by Agha in the 1970s and thanks to which the Englishman saw the world in a warmer color, and not just figuratively.

That orange filter accompanied him forever (he composed songs like

Imagine

wearing these glasses) but it also probably helped him reduce the visual stress on his eyes: it is believed that Lennon suffered from an optical disease known as Irlen syndrome, a type of photophobia that caused him made it especially sensitive to bright light.

Orange, furthermore, was a color that the artist considered inspiring: when he died, Lennon believed in Feng Shui, which says that the color orange favors creativity.

Lennon, at his home, Tittenhurst Park, near Ascot, in 1971.Michael Putland (Getty Images)

Lennon was one of the first artists to understand his glasses as a style statement and not so much as a visual assistant.

In the midst of Beatlemania, these round and wire frames were an integral part of his expression, a kind of amulet: not only did they serve an obvious function, but they also helped him handle the character of the most famous man in the world (even more famous than Jesus Christ). , as he himself said in an

Evening London Standard

interview in 1966).

At that time, these types of glasses were already associated with relevant people such as Ghandi, James Joyce, Groucho Marx or Hemingway, and Janis Joplin had started wearing them in the sixties.

Janis Joplin, in Columbus, Ohio, in 1970.John Byrne Cooke Estate (Getty Images)

Thus, Lennon's glasses began to be associated with him and with his causes, his ideals and his extravagances: “I am not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to adapt to anything” is one of the phrases attributed to him in that epoch.

As he became a countercultural icon and a staunch activist against the Vietnam War, he began collecting dozens of them, usually round, but some also with thicker frames.

He bought them at flea markets (one of his favorite stalls was reportedly on London's Candem Passage) and also at an optometrist on New York's Upper West Side (Dr. Gary Tracy still has his practice today). ).

Although one of his favorites were some folding ones called Green Japanese that were produced by hand in Tokyo.

He also wore them in 14-karat gold, with a version before photochromic glass (a lens that reacts to light and darkness), and he also liked the Kolus model designed in 1962 with a highly beveled silhouette by Oliver Goldsmith, a brand that It is still marketed today.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, protesting against the Vietnam War. Frank Barratt (Getty Images)

Their most characteristic trademark was their glasses, and this brand continues to remember today the impact their lenses had on popular culture: “When The Beatles arrived in the United States in 1964, they brought with them a fresh and exciting fashion sensibility that captivated the public. American youth.

Young fans on both sides of the Atlantic sought to emulate their style, sparking a global frenzy for anything remotely related to the Fab Four.

As the 1960s progressed, so did the Beatles' musical and fashion sensibilities.

Their groundbreaking album

Revolver

, released in 1966, marked a turning point in both their sound and style.

The cover art, designed by Klaus Voormann, featured a bold, psychedelic

collage

that reflected the band's evolving creative spirit.

“This album cover and its experimental fashion choices of the time became emblematic of the psychedelic era.”

With his round glasses he appeared in his legendary

bed-in,

a curious silent protest in which he and Yoko Ono did not get out of bed for an entire week: first, in March 1969, in room 702 of the Hilton hotel in Amsterdam and two months later, in May, in suite 1742 of the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal.

They were also the glasses he wore in the Imagine video clip (released in 1971) and they ended up being so identifying of Lennon that on the cover of his

1974 album

Walls and Bridges Lennon appeared with multiple lenses, photographed by Bob Gruen.

Thus, those wires were loaded with meaning and became synonymous with

hippie ideals,

pacifism, youth counterculture and other social issues of the 1970s.

In recent years, some of the glasses that belonged to Lennon have been auctioned (a British man anonymously paid two million dollars in 2007 for a pair of glasses that the artist gave on his tour of Japan in 1966, and an American who played the Beatles' chauffeur and assistant, Alan Harring, auctioned others in 2019 for around 165,000 euros at Sotheby's. This is how the glasses of pacifism ended up capitalizing on their symbology.