Eugénie Trochu is a Who What Wear editor in residence known for her transformative work at Vogue France and her Substack newsletter, where she documents and shares new trends, her no-nonsense approach to fashion and style, plus other musings. She’s also working on her upcoming first book that explores fashion as a space of memory, projection, and reinvention.
They aren’t oversized, flashy, or trend-driven.
I think small oval sunglasses are the key to a cool French look. Not the oversized frames that instantly become the focal point of an outfit, or the ultra-fashion styles that last one season before disappearing. I’m talking about slim, understated, almost sensible frames. The kind you stop noticing after five minutes, yet somehow they change everything.
What I love is that they sit between different eras without ever fully belonging to one. There’s something undeniably ’70s about them. That slightly hippie freedom I’ve always loved. But not the costume version of hippie. Not the Brigitte Bardot-in-Saint-Tropez fantasy with the tied shirt and oversized hair. Something subtler. More intellectual. As if the ’70s had met the ’90s and decided to keep only the best parts of each.
That’s probably why they work so well. They have all the ease of the ’70s, but with the refined proportions of ’90s frames.
It’s probably also why French women wear them so much. They’re never really a statement piece. They don’t ask for a particular outfit. They simply work with everything. Sport shorts, a vintage World Cup logo T-shirt, slightly worn sneakers. A little black dance-inspired dress with kitten heels for an aperitif that turns into sunset drinks. Jeans, a white shirt, a leather blazer. They always look as though they were meant to be part of the outfit, even when you grabbed them on your way out the door.
I also think they say something very French about the way we get dressed. We like accessories that improve a silhouette without transforming it. The kind you notice afterwards, rather than immediately. That’s exactly what small oval sunglasses do. They’re not trying to be trendy. They’re trying to look like you’ve owned them forever. And that may just be the chicest thing an accessory can do.
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