Although Brad Pitt has an obvious preference for brands by American eyewear specialists Oliver Peoples, his movie stylists had a very definite say in selections for his most memorable roles. So what were the preferred models?
The Big Short
In this, his most recent film, Pitt’s frumpy, grey-bearded character Ben Hockett, seems to be wearing rimless glasses and cuts a different figure from previous roles. The movie is about how Hockett and his partners at private financial investment company Cornwall Capital profited from predicting the US housing market crash. Pitt also produced the movie and reined in Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling for starring roles. Expect a December 2015 release.
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Rimless glasses are not in short supply and many brands supply them. To keep things in character we’d recommend Oakley’s OX 3122 KEEL glasses, one of the best eyewear brands still today.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Cast as a man with a peculiar medical condition which makes him grow younger instead of age, Pitt opted for Ray-Ban RB 3030 sunglasses as the more youthful-lookng Button racing about on his Indian motorcycle but wore the more distinguished Oliver Peoples Westley and Moscot Originals’ Lemtosh eyewear as his older looking self.
His stylists only too aware that the choice of spectacles have to be consistent with the three ages of man yet at the same time depict an old looking man who is actually young and a youth who is a pensioner. Difficult job. Those Hollywood stylists certainly earn their money!
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Below are the said below Ray-Ban RB3030 Aviators, adding more of a distinguished character to the original aviator model:
Mr & Mrs Smith
Again Oliver Peoples is the name behind Pitt’s Nitro and Victory sunglasses in this comedy favourite. His gold-framed Nitro eyewear had yellow lenses made specifically for the film but this unique brand was also marketed for public purchase. The models have now been discontinued but the images of Brad and Angelina sporting yellow lenses as a pair of assassins, married to each other and contracted to kill the other are still fresh because of these styling choices.
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Oceans 11
In his role as Rusty Ryan Brad Pitt is cast against an impressive Hollywood backdrop of pure cool, competing style-wise with the likes of George Clooney in a gang of criminal Rat Packers planning a sophisticated casino heist.
Pitt wears brown gradient lens Diesel Cobretti sunglasses, that and the light gold-frames among the features which marked them out as an effective character prop for his flashily dressed character. Garb-wise he has a style one could regard as retro even for the 1960s. Perhaps a deliberate and accentuated nod to the original Oceans 11 which starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.
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Unfortunately this is another model that has been discontinued, but we think the Ray-Ban RB3386 isn’t far off:
Fight Club
This dark movie with its twisted, underground feel and brutal, ambiguous philosophies was a stylist’s dream. Pitt played Tyler Durden a soapmaker who meets the disconcerted office worker played by Edward Norton on a flight and forms a fight club as a reaction against mundane existence. His Oliver Peoples 523 sunglasses scream a rare breed of cool. So rare in fact that you’ll struggle to find them through conventional sellers. Anyone seeking a pair would probably have to try eBay. The Aero and Sunset brands he also wears in the film should be comparably easier to find. All the brands worn by Pitt in the film are made by his preferred designer Oliver Peoples.
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So they’re no Oliver Peoples but we think the Dolce & Gabbana DG6093 Urban Essential Streetwear aren’t too far off, the fact they’re “ladies” sunglasses wouldn’t have bothered Tyler Durden one bit either:
