When Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Lancaster’s management school, peers over the top of his bookish but chic glasses and warns you of their danger, you take him seriously. Dangerous glasses? According to Cooper, a pair of spectacles may be worn in order to project a certain image, but they also operate at a subconscious level, leaving the perception of quite what that image is as much in the mind of the beholder as the wearer.

This, as the exhibitors of this month’s Vision-X optical trade show in Dubai would stress, deserves consideration. Before celebrities the likes of Michael Caine and Peter Sellers, and more recently Johnny Depp and Jarvis Cocker, made glasses an expression of style, they were more likely perceived as one of frailty. Even today, a latent negativity remains, such that presidential candidates are advised that a decision to wear glasses may dent their election prospects.

Conversely, sunglasses always typically have been the eyewear of cool; however, now they are being outsold by optical frames at a rate of three to one. According to one recent study by lens specialists Ciliaryblue.com, some 8% of sales of specs are now to people with perfect eyesight. “I have even seen people wearing frames with no lenses in them at all,” says Jason Kirk, owner/designer for the eponymous spectacles brand. “What’s that about?”

It is, as Cooper confirms, about utilising deeply ingrained stereotypes of glasses wearers to strategically enhance one’s image. This is why it is not uncommon for job interviewees to skip wearing their usual contact lenses in favour of their glasses: spectacles give maturity to youthful looks and still suggest both intellectualism (so much so that Pol Pot used them as a benchmark of potential dissidence) and professionalism. A survey conducted by US lens maker Essilor last year found that 40% of people consider glasses-wearers to be ‘smart’ and 39% ‘sophisticated’. The same survey found that the professions most readily-associated with glasses-wearers were librarian, lawyer, teacher and doctor – to which group might now be added businessperson.

“Maybe it is a product of the recession that more people need to be noticed, but you now wear glasses hoping that they are memorable, whereas just a few years ago you might wear them hoping they would be ignored,” says Philipp Haffmans, creative director of German glasses brand Mykita. Indeed, he says that”power specs”– striking designs that aim to make a statement – are in the ascendant. While many in business disappear into suited anonymity, consider the likes of Jürgen Schrempp, ex boss of DaimlerChrysler, with his angular, modernistic style, Steve Jobs and his round, suitably nerdy, rimless pair, or Bill Gates and his recent model upgrade, representing his move from the role of Microsoft main man to that of world ambassador.

Short-sighted only in the literal sense, these CEOs are certainly aware that glasses can create icons: Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Yves Saint Laurent, David Hockney, Woody Allen, Le Corbusier – all people whose public image has come to be inseparable from their specs. Small wonder that last year a collector paid £1.27m for Ghandi’s iconic metal-rimmed pair which, the campaigner once quipped, gave him “the vision to free India”.

“Image is as much a function of glasses as correcting eyesight and people in all sorts of professional areas are increasingly using them to their advantage,” suggests Claire Goldsmith, head of Oliver Goldsmith and designer of her own recently launched brand of optical glasses called Legacy. “Glasses are typically the first thing we notice on meeting someone and the first thing we recall about them. That’s a useful tool.”

Especially, she might add, given the radical change the industry as undergone over the last decade. After fashion brand licensing put a number of smaller, more innovative brands out of business during the early 1980s, their like are in resurgence again. Paris’ Silmo, another major annual trade show, now attracts over 32,000 visitors to see 1,000 exhibitors, among them Jono Hennessy, Undostrial and Bruno Chaussignand, all progressive brands that are driving this year’s key trends: decorated arms, lighter colours, square shapes and metal frames.

Renewed demand is also allowing them to invest in research and development, in turn providing a greater variety of opportunities for optical self-expression. Materials now being utilised include both the artisan – wood, for example – and the high-tech, including carbon fibre, silicone and magnesium, the lightest material yet used in glasses design. Pioneering production techniques are also allowing both additional utility – multidirectional hinges and virtually unbreakable memory metals – and new looks. Later this year Jason Kirk launches the first spring hinge to allow the connection of aluminium and acetate, as well as the result of a three-year development programme to provide acrylic that is soft enough for use in the manufacture of glasses, and with it an unprecedented range of colour and texture options.

“Some people might hope that glasses were ‘invisible’ but they never are; they always make some kind of statement,” says Kirk. “The options are so wide now you may as well take the opportunity to control the statement you make.”

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY… a sight for sun-sore eyes

That there is a touch of the original Ray-Ban Wayfarer to Oliver Peoples’ new Altman sunglasses style is no coincidence –the US company’s new style is exemplary of this year’s look in sunglasses: 1950s’ Hollywood retro but updated for 2010 – for example, with colour-graduated acetate. Paul Smith and Beausoleil have gone down the same retro road, but it is not the only road. Indeed, the other key trend is distinctly counter to it –1980s’ futuristic, with brands the likes of Mykita and Factory 900 offering outsize slatted styles: French blinds for the windows of the soul.

In between are trends that are less referential and more wearable. The likes of Baldessarini, Porsche Design and Rodenstock are opting for 1970s-inspired, large, gently rounded frames. For those who might feel self-conscious in even these, perhaps the safest option is to dip into the trend also big with optical frames: arm detail. From Dilem’s op art patterns through to Guess and Gant’s cut-out effects, expressive arms provide interest to what from the front are essentially conservative styles.

BEAUSOLEIL S/535 (colour 741)
Price: €225 www.beausoleil.fr

MYKITA Romain
Price: €395 www.mykita.com

PORSCHE DESIGN P’8486 (colour C)
Price: €310 www.porsche-design.com