How To Pick Glasses That Suit Your Face Shape

Find out how to pick frames that will flatter your face

Nothing encompasses the idea of functional fashion better than a stylish pair of glasses, but with so many potential pitfalls choosing a new pair can be daunting.

Brigitte Reymond-Peter, from Vancouver’s Eyes For You, has over 35 years of experience helping customers choose the perfect glasses and she passed on a few tips for picking the right frames for your face shape, hairstyle and colouring. 

Eyes for You: 2694 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC

Oval-shaped Face

“Oval is an easy face shape. Lots of glasses will look good. It’s the only face shape that provides lots of choice. You can have round, you can have square and you can have cat eye. Cat eye fits a lot of oval faces with any shape and any colour,” says Reymond-Peter.

Heart-shaped Face

“For this shape we see a lot of rimless frames, because the face shape is a little unusual you don’t want to accent any of the features. We do accents on the sides of the frames depending on the colour of the hair.” 

Round-shaped Face

“No round and no square (frames). It’s the only face shape that you can’t have round or square. Rectangular works the best to lengthen the shape of the face and to make it less round looking. Add clear bridges to make the eyes seem further apart – it’s an illusion but it works well. Also, add some colour on the temples (the piece that runs along the side of your head and behind your ears) to lengthen the appearance of a round face.” 

Square-shaped Face

“We do a curved lower part – that’s important – and the upper part of the frame should be a little bit heavy to add some weight. The frames should be no wider than the widest part of the face. Also, the temples have to fit the widest part of the face.” 

Oblong-shaped Face

“Oblong is the one we really don’t see much, but we do a lot with decorative temples that add width. A decorative temple, we call it. It makes the face a little bit wider. “

Triangle-shaped Face

“We do mostly decorative tops, like semi-rimless with a little bit happening on the top of the frame to even out the triangle shape a bit. We also do a lot of rimless with the same decorative temple. A little bit thicker temple adds some structure to the face.”

Diamond-shaped Face

“For the diamond shape we do accents on the forehead, like on the top of the frame, as well as rimless. Rimless works for a lot of face shapes, but it works really well for diamonds.”

Complementing Your Curly Hair

“When you have lots of hair or curly hair, you don’t want a thick rim. You want to make it thin. Otherwise there’s too much happening in the face. When you wear glasses, you can’t have a frame that stands out so much that all you see are the glasses.”

Colouring

“In terms of colour, the colour goes hand in hand with the skin tone. Keep three things in mind: skin tone, the hair colour and the eye colour. It’s like when you pick your clothes – you make sure it goes with your whole look. With glasses it’s the same thing. So even if you never wear red, but red looks good on you because you have nice blue eyes, then you can still pick a nice red frame. Some people think that they can’t, but they can.”

General Advice

“One important thing is that the eyes have to appear centred in the frame. We see a lot of people where the frame comes too close to their eyes and it gives them a very severe look. And the frames should be in proportion to the face.”