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How can something that looks so dorky perform so well? Our writer attempts to find out.
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In the 1980s only the freaks wore wraparound sunglasses—the hyper-serious professional beach volleyball players and pro triathletes who did entire Ironman races in just their Speedos and shields. The predominant take-over-your-whole-face sunglasses worn by these athletes were Oakley Blades. I may have been a kid back then, but I still had some sense of style and judgment, and I thought they were dorky.
At some point, they became unpopular and disappeared from the public eye. But today, against all odds, wraparound sunglasses are back again. And not just back—they’re cool. Hipster trail runners are sporting them. So are 20-somethings. As are cyclists on the trail and the road. Heck, they’re even popular in baseball.
So, despite great reluctance, I had to try them. And, after testing a pair of Smith Vert PivLoks ($209) over the past couple months, I found out there’s a reason those top-level athletes from decades ago wore them: wraparound sunglasses are the most comfortable and functional eyewear you can wear while being active.
The large, single lens covers everything from your left to your right temple, and from above your eyebrows to your cheekbones. There’s no sunglass frame in your peripheral vision, and the undistorted, optical clarity is in that large a field of view is hard to beat when you’re moving fast on a trail.
The Vert PivLocks have an adjustable nose piece made from a pliable thermoplastic that keeps the massive lens just far enough off my face to be extremely comfortable, and to allow ample airflow in conjunction with two small vents in the top of the lens. That airflow keeps the lens from fogging up, no matter how hot and sweaty I get on a run. The nosepiece and arms also seem to get grippier the more I sweat, which means they don’t slip down and need readjusting like some heavier glasses.
Another benefit of the wraparound effect is that there is minimal room for insects, like wasps, to sneak in between my face and my sunglasses. I’ve been stung by a wasp on my face while cycling at least three times. It looks like this: said wasp gets hit abruptly by my zooming face and becomes trapped between my sunglasses and my skin, which pisses him or her off enough for them to sting me. It sucks for both of us. These wraparound shades all but rule out the possibility of that happening because of their full coverage and close-to-skin fit.
The pair I’m testing also have the PivLock function where a simple pivot of the temple arm unlocks the lens, making it easy to change between the massive, one-piece lenses. Mine came with the red mirrored ChromaPop (Smith’s enhanced color contrast treatment) that block out 15 percent of variable light transmission for bright days, and a clear lens intended for low light conditions. But I have to say that the clear lenses look even worse than the shaded ones, like high school biology goggles gone sporty.
Now the downsides: They still look ridiculous. I instantly become self-conscious when I put them on. I wore them on a two-hour trail run on my hometown trails of Boulder, Colorado, and hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. I’ve worn them on a few mountain runs in the Indian Peaks when I went out with just my dog. I won’t wear them with my regular crew of girlfriends because we take pictures of each other when we run and I think I look like a fool in these shades and don’t want to be documented.
But that could just be me: my sophomore and my junior high sons keep trying to steal these sunglasses from me. It turns out 20-something trail runners and Tour de France cyclists aren’t the only ones who think wraparound shades look cool.
I’d like to take advantage of the performance and comfort of wraparound sunglasses. The key, for me, will be to put them on and not look in a mirror before I head out to the trails or on a bike ride. But I think I have to take that step: these glasses perform too well not to use.
Our veteran gear maven, Lisa Jhung, has been testing gear for 25 years. She’s sprayed herself down with a hose to test the waterproofness of rain jackets, set up treadmills in her yard for weeks of testing, and stashed shoes in bushes to change mid-run. In this column, Vetted, she inspects, tests, and muses on all things outdoor gear.
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