Hipster Glasses in the Workplace: Stylish or Unprofessional?

The hipster glasses need to be confronted in the workplace – stylish or unprofessional? Boxy black or turtle-shell frames certainly do not help young professionals blend into the traditional workplace, yet they continue to wear them.

The number of post-grad professionals wearing massive hipster glasses are few. Conforming to the dress quo will show that you take your job seriously; just like wearing a suit does. If the frames are bigger than your pinky up and down, vertically and horizontally, they are too big – unprofessional (by the way, none of this applies if you are working at a fashionable startup company with bean bags for chairs, or an organic design firm constituted only of 20-somethings; you get my drift). This is the “pinky” rule. Also, fake glasses are absolutely unprofessional. Save your fake frames for after work, or your Urkel Halloween costume.

This speculation on spectacles concludes that real glasses in the workplace are stylish, as long as they are not huge or fake (they should be on your face for a reason, for correcting sight, not as lens-less fashion statements). For students working in a stiff summer office job, hoping for a permanent position at the end of the summer, find some stylish glasses that don’t look like magnifying glasses without the handles. When considering whether to offer you a position at the end of your internship, your boss will take your entire profile into account, including your dress and attitude. Follow the pinky rule, make sure there are lenses in your frames, and keep professionalism in sight.