Ever since she entered the public eye, Anna Delvey became infamous for her carefully manufactured image, with one key element of her look garnering special attention: her bold black eyeglasses. The instantly iconic glasses — by Celine — were spotted in every photo taken of Delvey when she stood trial, accused of grand larceny and theft of services. As is the case with nearly every part of Delvey’s identity, though, there is much more to these frames than initially meets the eye.
These glasses also play a big part in Inventing Anna, the dramatized version of Delvey’s life, in which she not only parties with New York City’s social elite, but also has a sudden reversal of fortunes. In Episode 4, Anna (Julia Garner) finds herself at a crossroads. She’s struggling to be taken seriously by the Wall Street bankers from whom she’s been desperately trying to procure a loan. Once Anna realizes that these old-school finance guys are as image-obsessed as she is, she gets “serious” by switching up her clothes, dying her hair red (blondes might have more fun, but they don’t get more funding) and, perhaps most significantly, sporting a pair of thick Celine glasses.
Given Anna’s innate savviness when it came to crafting a new identity, the addition of these glasses when she was aggressively fundraising made sense; many scientific studies have found that people tend to associate wearing glasses with intelligence, and Anna needed to appear like she knew what she was doing. Beyond that, the glasses were a smart choice for her trial, since criminal defense lawyers sometimes use the tactic of having their clients wear glasses in an attempt to make them seem more trustworthy and “less menacing” to juries.
Spencer Shapiro, an eyewear expert and specialist in rare luxury goods, agrees that “the right pair of glasses can give a perception of increased intelligence, class or social status,” and he believes that Anna chose just the right pair to support her scam. “One of the most notable pieces of Anna’s wardrobe is her black acetate Celine glasses,” Shapiro tells Tudum. “These frames give off a timeless and elegant look without being overly flashy, an ‘if you know, you know’ type of piece. The full-rimmed oversized look of these glasses complements her style and face shape perfectly while making a statement without relying on logos or bright colors.”
According to Lyn Paolo, the costume designer for Inventing Anna, expertly curated accessories were the key to showing which characters were actually wealthy and belonged in that elite circle that Anna infiltrated. And of course, thanks to her keen observation skills, Anna always had the right accessories. “We were wanting Anna to pass for wealthy,” Paolo tells Tudum. “She was certainly wanting to pass for wealthy and we didn’t really have tells that she wasn’t, because that would’ve defeated her purpose. The real Anna was such a chameleon, and we wanted our Anna to fit in wherever she went.” The prop team, led by Diana Burton, chose black Celine frames because they were an exact match of the real Anna Delvey’s glasses; Paolo says that, from a fashion perspective, they were the perfect choice. “At the point in the story where she’s wearing the Celine glasses,” Paolo says, “it’s more about understated elegance and not being in your face with a designer label.”
The Celine frames aren’t the only pair of glasses that play a role in Anna’s journey as a faux heiress. “Throughout the series, Anna’s glasses tell a lot of the story because there’s a lot of Stella McCartney and Balenciaga and Dolce & Gabbana,” Paolo says. Those accessories are synonymous with glamour, which — as a student of fashion, culture and self-image — Delvey would be acutely aware of. “Sunglasses are iconic with that Hollywood image of the movie star,” Paolo explains, invoking the famous shot of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s as a prime example.
In addition to restrained sophistication and Hollywood glamour, the Celine frames specifically work well in the setting of a Wall Street investor’s corner office. “They’re square and strong,” Paolo says. “There’s no little round John Lennon glasses on Anna Delvey. They’re very structured and I think that speaks in a way to the real Anna, who must have had some organizational skills.” (No offense to John Lennon, of course.)
While the frames chosen by the real Delvey and those chosen by the fashion and props team for Inventing Anna play an aesthetically meaningful role in the crafting of Delvey’s persona, the glasses may also have served another, more practical purpose that cannot be underestimated. “When you put a pair of glasses on, it hides your eyes,” Paolo points out. “People couldn’t read what was really going on in there.” In other words, those thick, dark frames helped Anna hide in plain sight.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
