The Franklin Look

It may have started with old Ben Franklin peering owlishly over his tiny specs. Winston Churchill may have helped with his head-down scowl and black-rimmed glasses at half-mast on his nose. Then again, Actor E. G. Marshall, judiciously buffing his half-specs in The Defenders, may be responsible.

However it got going, a vogue for half-moon spectacles--also known to the trade as pulpit glasses and half-eyes --is lending a new mien to the far-sighted across the U.S. People of all ages and walks of life are popping up in demi-cheaters. "We used to sell about two pairs a month," says Milwaukee Optician James Shofner. "These days, we sell at least a pair a day."

Shofner thinks that TV is responsible. "The half-spec enables people who only need glasses for reading to go through the evening paper and watch TV at the same time without taking their glasses off," he explains. Others extol the half eye's compactness in the pocket, its lightness on the nose, the way it allows women to apply eye makeup and see what they're doing. Deep down, though, half-spec wearers know that the main reason they wear them is the expression --quizzical, benign, worldly-wise--that they impart to even the most pudding-faced peerer.

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