Palin's glasses fuel and frame a fashion spectacle

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MCT) - She's the moose-hunting mother of five, the busy hockey mom who rose from small-town mayor to governor of Alaska. GOP vice presidential pick Sarah Palin is all that _ and she's got cool glasses, too.

Trendhunter.com, a Web site that ferrets out the latest crazes across the globe, says the Palin frames have fueled a "designer-eyeglasses frenzy." Marie Claire magazine declared the specs, by Japanese designer Kazuo Kawasaki, "a style hit." They're a pricey one, too, starting at $375 just for the titanium frames.

Some media outlets, including the Huffington Post, wondered if the glasses were "the new Hillary Clinton pantsuit."

Why all the buzz about the frames? And will consumers bite, despite the price?

They appear smitten with what these glasses say.

"Smart. Educated. Very businesslike," says Dana Schwalenberg, an optician at Optix on Downer, 2634 N. Downer Ave., who fielded a half dozen calls about the glasses after the GOP convention.

"It's a real nice sophisticated look, but it still has an edge to it," says Jennifer Heiden, an optician at Ziegler & Leffingwell Eyecare in West Allis, which specializes in high-end eyewear.

Heiden has been going through a stack of inquiries about the Palin frames every day when she gets to work.

"They call asking for the particular model _ the Kawasaki 704," she says. "It's like they've already done their research on it. They just love how it looks."

Heiden finally called the Kawasaki company to ask about getting samples so people could try them on.

"Even before I said what frame, they said, 'Let me guess _ the 704,'" she says.

At Optix, callers get right to the point. "They'll use her name (and say), 'Her glasses were cool.' And they're looking for something like that," says Schwalenberg. Optix hasn't sold any of the Kawasaki glasses yet, but it has ordered a catalog for customers to peruse.

E. Molly Quinn, who called Optix in pursuit of the frames, says Palin has made it more than OK for her to wear glasses.

"It's always been, 'Men don't make passes at girls that wear glasses,' " says Quinn, who wore glasses from age 3 through high school, then ditched them for contact lenses. "In seeing her, I think that's all changed now."

A supporter of the McCain-Palin ticket, Quinn, 59, shook Palin's hand in Cedarburg the day after the GOP convention ended. She saw those frames up close. She was sold.

"I've always worn contacts. I've always had this stigma that glasses look icky," Quinn says. "It just makes you feel like, gosh, if our maybe-vice president is feeling confident about wearing glasses, maybe so can I."

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But is this about more than just putting lasses in glasses? Could it be that we take the former beauty queen more seriously when she's behind a pair of specs?

Some pundits call Palin's style the "naughty librarian" look. But would Joe Lieberman, also vetted as a veep candidate, be transformed into any kind of librarian, glasses or not, had he been picked?

"It shows how little we've advanced, that we're focusing on hair, makeup and glasses," says Karen O'Connor, founder and director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington, D.C.

"This goes back to Geraldine Ferraro," says O'Connor, author of "Gendering American Politics" and "Women, Politics, and American Society. When Ferraro ran for vice president with Walter Mondale, O'Connor recalls, "The big issue was 'What is she going to wear?' "

It's a little different with glasses, she says. But only a little.

"Once you've seen what she's wearing, that's gone. But the glasses stay" and continue to attract attention, she says.

"Historically, people attach intelligence to people who wear glasses. So if there's a question about "how smart you are, or how ready you are for this office, you're going to keep those glasses on," O'Connor says.

"Hillary Clinton _ I'm sure she's blind as a bat, but you don't see her in glasses. Hillary did not have to have a pair glasses on to look intelligent."

Whatever their political persuasion, would-be buyers will need deep pockets. By the time the glasses are ordered and finished, the tab can reach $700 to $1,000, according to local opticians.

Like Optix, Ziegler & Leffingwell Eyecare hasn't sold any of the frames, but Heiden believes that will change once the store has samples and buyers can see how they look on them.

"Yeah, they look great on Sarah Palin," Heiden says, "but not everyone looks like Sarah Palin."

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© 2008, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.