Which frame suits which face

The classic advice is one line long: pick the frame that contrasts your face. Angular frames on soft faces, round frames on angular faces. It has survived decades because it mostly works. Here is how it plays out across the shapes we actually make.

Round metals

The old hippie circle. It flatters square and rectangular faces best, where the jawline provides the structure and the frame provides the softness. On a very round face the circles repeat the face instead of framing it, which is the one pairing we would talk you out of. Ours run small to medium; a round frame that is too large tips from retro into costume fast.

Hexagons

The hedge. A hexagon reads round from across the room and angular up close, so it works on more faces than either pure shape. If you are between a round and a square frame and cannot decide, this is the shape that decision usually lands on. It also photographs sharper than it looks in the hand, which our buyers seem to have discovered before we did.

Squares and rectangles

The workhorses of our classic shelf. Best on round and oval faces, where the straight top line adds structure. An oval face, to be fair, carries nearly anything; if that is you, choose on lens width and colour and skip the theory.

The teardrop aviator

Aviators suit heart shaped and oval faces most naturally, but the real variable is size. We cut ours in 58 and 62 millimetre lens widths. If a past aviator swallowed your face, it was probably a 62 on a 58 face; try the smaller number before giving up on the shape.

Sparkling squares

The decorated frames on our trendy shelf follow square rules, with one addition: the sparkle pulls attention to the browline, so they reward faces that want width up top. They are picked for the outfit first, and that is a legitimate way to choose sunglasses. The lens underneath is the same UV400 build as everything else we make.

Four pairs from the trendy shelf to put faces to the names: