Lensless Glasses

Ok now this is something you see in Korea everywhere. I first noticed it when I was talking to my classmate years ago, back when I was taking a Korean language course. I was talking to her and I noticed she had really nice frames, but then I thought... wait... where are the lenses? o_O

My friend was Chinese and she probably thought it was a weird question to ask. "They're just for fashion" she told me. I've honestly never seen that in Europe anywhere. So I just didn't get it. Why would you wear glasses without lenses, it doesn't make you look fashionable, it just looks stupid...

But we all tend to be a bit negative or critical etc when we see new things that we don't know. I've been living in Korea for 3 years now and I just got used to it.

In Korea, glasses don't only serve for vision correction but they're also fashion accessories. You can wear them with lenses that have no prescription or without lenses at all. Even some of my friends do that. I already mentioned my Chinese friend from Korean language class, and then there's one of my best friends in Daegu. He's actually Korean, but he spent most of his life in America, so I see him more as an American, than Korean. He thinks lensless glasses are stupid. BUT he wears glasses with lenses that have no prescription, because he think they make him look cool (actually 'sexier' was how he put it if I remember correctly).

These are my boyfriend's glasses and as you can see they have no lenses. But he wears them sometimes! Especially when he wants to look really good. Last time I arrived by bus from Daegu to Jeonju and he came to pick me up at the bus station. He wanted to dress up for me, so he put on a nice shirt and trousers, even a tie AND these glasses.

He really does look good with them, but I really wish he'd put lenses in them, especially since he needs them anyway. He always wears hard lenses and almost never takes them out, so I think it would be good if he used prescription on these glasses and wear them sometimes instead of his hard lenses. But... oh well...

I googled this a bit and it seems that these lensless glasses originate in Japan. According to wikipedia, they first became popular in 1960s but then the trend died out. Now they are again popular in South Korea, China and Taiwan.

Have you ever seen anyone wearing lensless glasses? Would you wear them? Feel free to share your opinion in a comment. Thank you ^^