"Rhinestone shades and cheap sunglasses!"

While sitting at a stop light, broadcasting my iPod selections to the small area immediately around my car, I suddenly made a fairly obvious connection between what was playing at that moment (ZZ Top’s ‘Cheap Sunglasses’) and a group of young female soldiers standing at a bus stop wearing, you guessed it… cheap sunglasses. I would have employed the adjective ‘attractive’ to describe them, but because their faces were completely hidden behind their big goofy sunglasses I really couldn’t say!

I’ve mention on several occasions my opinion that there is really no middle ground when it comes to Israeli fashion sense. Israelis are either fabulous fashion plates… or horrible fashion victims.  However, when it comes to Israelis trying to accessorize with eyewear, there seems to be a common thread of ‘uh oh’ that spans the religious and political spectrum from Metulla to Eilat.

Once upon a time every self-respecting Israeli wore sleek aviator-style sunglasses. I suppose the reason for this was that every Israeli secretly wanted to be mistaken for a fighter pilot (the apex of the Israeli military pantheon)... and every Israeli Air Force pilot favored this one distinct style of aviator shades.

Thus, for the first 30-40 years of the State, there was a comfortable conformity in Israeli summer eyewear.

I don’t know exactly when or where the train left the tracks, but at some point in the early ‘90s, Israelis seem to have abandoned the fighter pilot look and instead took leave of their collective fashion sense.

Some went for the marginally tolerable wrap-around surfer/shabak (secret service) shades… but most took a nasty turn towards the big, gaudy drug store sunglasses favored by senior citizens the world over.

I really wish I could understand the mental checklist that the youth of Israel ‘tick’ off as they get dressed these days:

• Perfectly styled hair - CHECK
• Tastefully applied make-up - CHECK
• Latest fashion clothing – CHECK

Hmmmm… something’s missing… oh I know:

• Clown glasses!

I feel confident that my maternal grandmother (she should rest in peace), whose taste in sunglasses (and many other things) bordered on comfortably garish, would have felt right at home with the typical Israeli teenager’s taste in sunglasses.

Oh, and my comment earlier about these oversized, rhinestone-festooned circus-shades being cheap drug-store fare?

Not so much.

I recently went into several high-end eyeglass stores looking for some reading glasses (yes, I’ve arrived at that stage of life) and was floored to see what Israelis are paying for sunglasses that will hide their faces from mouth to hairline. These are definitely NOT your grandmother’s sunglasses (my grandma Fay would have flat-lined after one glance at the price tag)!

In an inexplicable flip-flop of the price-to-quality equation, what used to be a dime-store bargain is now expensive beyond reason… and what was once a pricey commodity is now relatively affordable. Such is the case with the Israeli sunglass market.

You want a pair of plain aviator glasses? No problem, how many would you like?

You want a pair of these big foolish eyesores? We’ll have to check your credit before we can let you try them on!

As the light changed and I slowly accelerated past this gaggle of [perhaps attractive] young soldiers, I couldn’t help mentally paraphrasing the end of the song:

"What would really knock me out’d be some cheap sunglasses! Dudda da da d’da da DUH, dudda da dada…"