The Sexy Librarian Look

By 1953, when Marilyn Monroe starred as Pola in “How To Marry A Millionaire,” the ‘sexy librarian look’ had found its archetype.  She is a kind of gender-reversed Clark Kent in this film.  Playing a woman who is embarrassed to be seen in glasses, Marilyn Monroe establishes the tantalizing aesthetic and sets the tone for the next several decades of women’s frame-styles with her catwoman frames in the film.  She quotes Dorothy Parker, saying that, “Men don’t pay much attention to a woman in glasses,” but nothing could...