A heart-throb for more than 40 years, Brad Pitt is no doubt used to people looking at him. But this week, that gaze was distracted by an addition to his face – aviator-style glasses.

Worn to watch the tennis at Roland Garros and with a pink trenchcoat when out for dinner in Paris, these retro glassesare more typically worn by younger men. That’s changed recently – they’re now becoming central to a makeover for men entering their “late life” era, but who aren’t willing to submit to the fashion invisibility associated with ageing.

Gary Lineker, 65, wore glasses like this to appear on Louis Theroux this week. Ian Wright – a 62-year-old man with an impressive collection of glasses – wore bold aviator styles as a pundit for the first game of the World Cup. Daniel Craig is perhaps the early adopter. After appearing in the Loewe campaign in a pair of yellow-tinted glasses and jumper in 2024, the 58-year-old actor has doubled down on fashion-friendly specs. In January 2025, GQ called a pair he was wearing, similar to Pitt’s, “hot professor glasses”.

Johnny Davis, luxury director at Esquire, has noticed the trend. He says it’s a clever trick. “They’re not trying to disguise the fact that they’re of an age where they need to wear spectacles,” he argues. “They’re making them part of their look.”

For Pitt, they’re part of a wider shift. On last year’s press tour of F1, the actor worked with Taylor McNeill, the same stylist who creates viral looks for Timothée Chalamet and Kendrick Lamar. Pitt – her oldest client by some distance at 62 – wore 90s silk shirts, crushed velvet and even tie dye. Style commentators online dubbed it “the reinvention of Brad Pitt”. Similarly, since the Loewe campaign, Craig has leaned into more kooky fashion choices such as a jacket with a skeleton on it from the Japanese brand Kapital, or a sweater with holes in it. Wright, meanwhile, who is often on the front row at Burberry shows and the face of Marks & Spencer, has a style that is fun but also attainable.

According to Esquire’s Davis, these glasses do a lot of heavy lifting. “They say: ‘I have taste. I pay attention. I know who I am.’ You can wear a fairly simple outfit – like Lineker’s dark tops – and the glasses provide the character.”

This is an idea that goes beyond celebrity. Jaki Baranski, a senior frame buyer at Specsavers, is familiar with shapes like the ones worn by Pitt. The retailer has a design called the Glover, popular with men in their 50s and upwards. She sees these glasses as part of a wider trend in how men look at fashion. “Men are taking a bit more time choosing a pair of frames from an aesthetic point of view,” she says. “It’s more in line with how someone selects a watch or trainers.”

Like these other accessories, glasses are a shortcut. “Not everyone feels comfortable wearing bright colours, fashion-forward tailoring or more extreme trends, but a pair of distinctive glasses is different,” says Davis. “They allow you to signal that you still care about style without feeling as though you’re trying too hard.”

While Pitt might have drafted in help from McNeill to reinvent his look, Baranski says a lot of men at this age are confident with their style. “They know who they are and what they like. These frames all work into that. It’s not like they are super understated, they talk to some sort of personal expression.”

Davis agrees, and says the symbolism of the glasses can be misconstrued. “People sometimes compare this sort of thing to the classic midlife-crisis Porsche, but I think it’s almost the opposite,” he says. “A sports car says: ‘Look at me.’ Interesting glasses say: ‘This is who I am.’”