Daniel Craig is not your normal eyewear icon. While some of the most esteemed spectacle wearers are renowned for a signature style that they’ve worn decade after decade, Mr Craig doth contains multitudes—running the gamut from time-honoured classics to envelope-pushing modern masterpieces. Maybe the same could be said for his acting too—and although his time as Bond casts a fairly big tuxedo-clad silhouette over his career, he’s a fair bit more versatile than you’d first think.
His role in 1996’s Our Friends in the North is maybe a prime example of this. This stone-cold classic TV drama told the story of four friends over three decades in Newcastle, and was the gritty springboard that made Craig and his co-stars Gina Mckee, Christopher Eccleston and Mark Strong household names (in some homes at least). It isn’t much of a spoiler to say that Craig’s character Geordie has maybe the toughest time of the four over the years—with stints on the street and time behind bars—but he also wears the best glasses of the show, sporting a chunky pair of brown acetate frames along with some impressive mutton chop sideburns.
It’s important to remember that this came out just a year after Goldeneye. The image of Craig’s long-haired Geordie was a long way from Brosnan’s Bond, but in the years that followed, the gulf between them narrowed with a series of slightly suaver roles (with plenty of sharp frames too).
He was Ted Hughes in Sylvia. He was a loose cannon mobster in Road to Perdition. He was an… erm… unfortunate witness to a tragic hot air balloon accident in Enduring Love. This range is probably what made him the perfect candidate to transform 007 from a stiff two-dimensional British spy guy to a believable character with actual depth. He might have been a surprise choice, but he was the right choice, taking Bond away from one-liners and into the real world (or a slightly realer world, at least).
But this article is about glasses… not acting. The amount of internet space devoted to what the various Bonds wore over the years would fill half of Silicon Valley, but it’s worth reiterating that 007 has worn some seriously swanky eyewear over his many years on Her Majesty's Secret Service—from Connery’s wayfarers worn by the pool in Thunderball to Brosnan’s Goldeneye Persols. Daniel Craig’s Bond is no exception.
Let’s run through ‘em; Casino Royale… wraparound tortoise-shell Persols. Quantum of Solace… a pair of modernist Tom Ford aviators without the nose-bridge. Skyfall… a slightly more classic pair of Tom Ford aviators. Then in Spectre he’s knocking about in dark brown wayfarers (which later fetched £25,000 at auction) as well as a pair of leather-sided Vuarnets built with mountaineering in mind. For his last outing, Craig really pushed the boat out, swapping between four pairs of glasses—including a pair of ultra-progressive round-lensed aviators (which, in a rare twist, are actually worn for real deal aviation as he larks about in a glider).
We’ve probably missed a few there, but you get the idea, there’s no signature Bond frame, but rather a whole shelf-full of different shapes and styles—with seemingly a pair for each lavish location. Those JMM Dealans he wore for a GQ shoot as he handed in his licence to kill were pretty special too.
Since his spy stint, this eyewear mastery has only continued as his scope has widened. No disrespect to Roger Moore and co, but even though Spectre was only a few years ago, Craig has already had the most interesting post-007 career of the Bond bunch (although you’ve got to give Connery props for that Zardoz costume). Maybe the fact he was never an obvious Bond meant he was never going to get typecast as a Martini-guzzling spy?
Loosening up as detective Benoit Blanc in Knives Out and the sequel Glass Onion, he’s got a serious penchant for Cutler and Gross—wearing 1302 sunglasses and 1303 prescription frames along with some seriously relaxed safari suits and tweed coats. And then there’s his latest film Queer, where he plays a mildly-fictionalised version of William Burroughs on the hunt for ayahuasca and enlightenment (and drink) in yet another pair of Cutler and Gross frames… this time the 0822 aviators.
But it’s his recent campaign for Loewe that’s maybe turned the most heads (and caused the most internet hubbub). Yellow lenses… the blond bangs of an Afghan Hound… chunky patterned jumper that could have been knitted by his mum while sat watching Casualty… 007 has gone fully off-piste and wouldn’t look out of place spinning Balearic records at a beach-side bar as the sun goes down.
Recent snaps of Craig at the Olympics and at the premiere of Queer in a pair of massive Jacques Marie Mage Grand Prix shades show the transformation wasn’t just for the back cover of the fashion mags either.
Or perhaps it wasn’t a transformation after all? Looking over his career (and his style) over the years, maybe Bond was the exception, rather than the rule? Either way, he certainly knows a good pair of glasses when he sees ‘em.
