I’ve had really great experiences with eyebuydirect.com (also zenni.com, but I prefer eyebuydirect)
I generally look for lightweight frames with nosepieces. I like them big because I use progressives (besides, I think they’re more stylish), light, and – when possible – decorative (colors, tortoise shell, etc).
Those of us who’ve let our hair go gray generally don’t look good in big, bold frames, in my opinion. I think they work better on people with lots of dark hair. They just stand out too much on people with gray or light hair.
I do like the fact that the extremely narrow frames of the past few years seem to be history now.
@LVKris , my progressives at Costco were $219.
Thanks for the information everyone!
The huge variation in price between on-line shops, discount retailers and optometric offices is pretty crazy. It pays to shop around!
I wear glasses all the time now, although I actually don’t need them for reading at all, and often take them off for that purpose. Contacts wreck my near vision now, they are expensive, and I don’t like having to have readers around all the time. There is no way in hell I am going to have them hanging around my neck. Talk about aging! So I have progressives.
I hate those thick dark frames. I don’t like having that much frame in my field of vision. I prefer rimless. As little “glasses” as possible. I don’t care whether they are “in” or not, and I also do not think they are “aging.” (Says who?) As a lifelong glasses wearer, I think people should just wear what looks and feels good on THEM, and not get bent out of shape about what is trendy and what is not.
My current glasses are from Zenni, and cost $80. The anti-glare coating is starting to fail, but then that happened on $500 glasses, too.
I wear my reading glasses on a chain daily at work and sometimes at home. I need them A LOT and it’s so much more convenient and safer for the glasses then setting them down in one spot or another. The key is getting a cute chain! Otherwise I’m probably the youngest, nicely dressed person in the office - even if many of the others are younger than me!
And on that chain I have adorable sky blue/teal/brown round Harry Potter-ish glasses!
Two-toned glasses are fashionable. I have one from Warby Parker and another from Eye Buy Direct that are tortoiseshell on top and fade to clear.
Well, you’ve inspired me, @abasket. I must say that I would dearly love to be able to wear contacts again! 
The trick will be to find cute readers as well as a cute chain.
^^^ Not to get off subject from the OP, but our SteinMart has LOADS of cute readers - often in the $15-$20 range. It’s the only thing I go there for! They also have some chains…
Depending on your taste, Brighton has some quality chains that LAST.
Well, when you don’t see anyone under 50 wearing rimless glasses, I’d say thats aging. Have any of you read the book,” How Not To Look Old”? It’s about 8 years old now, but many things she mentions still stand. She defines 2 styles …YH (young and hip), or OL (old lady). So I guess the author defines it then. And I agree.
I just went from wearing rimless glasses to light tortoise shell frames that still sometimes seem too large to me. I would never have chosen this style on my own but the guy working at the place offered them as an alternative and I liked them in spite of my preconceived notions of what looks good. I sent a picture to my daughters to get feedback and they all approved them enthusiastically. One called them “sick” or “dope” and one even wanted to know where I’d gotten them so she could investigate for herself.
As a rule, I am stubbornly loyal to my contacts but @Consolation is right, they wreck your near vision, even the progressive types. I don’t like carrying readers around either and while I have no objection to a chain, I don’t really want to wear glasses around my neck all the time either.
So I tried wearing my new glasses for a few days straight and could not believe how many compliments I got. Someone told me I looked really cute in glasses! (This blew me away because once when I was in my 20s a salesperson in an optical store told me that some people are just not meant to wear glasses. Ouch.) One day when I went to put in my contact lenses, I looked at myself and thought, whoa, my face looks “naked.”
I still default to the contacts but I suspect I will make the move over to full time glasses eventually. Well, that is unless cataract surgery is somewhere in my future and I can get a correction that allows me to lose the glasses entirely. 
I wear progressives at work and out in the world. I keep them in my purse. But at home I have a gazillion pairs of readers and just grab a pair when I want to read or do something up close. I don’t need any distance correction. But one of these days, my eye doc tells me, I’m going to need prism in my readers and that will be the end of just grabbing any old pair of glasses.
I wear my (progressive) sunglasses on a cord so I can just let them drop when I go inside a store or somewhere. I always wear sunglasses outside and when driving.
I do think it’s a good idea to change your glasses style occasionally. My parents and my brothers all hung on to their enormous 80s style glasses for way too long. I’d look at them and think, have you seen yourself lately? I remember watching a documentary on the making of some gigantic thing, maybe a bridge or a tunnel, that took a decade to build. The guy in charge was interviewed several times over the course of the build and in the beginning of the show he looked pretty dorky but by the end when his glasses were more contemporary, I was thinking he’s actually fairly attractive. That was an eye-opener, so to speak.
OP here. I will likely venture to the mall to try on glasses soon. Last time I checked I didn’t like any of the frames at Costco, but I will check again. I paid a ridiculous amount for my last glasses, given I need progressives but my vision isn’t terrible and I just need bifocals. I think my last couple of pairs were the brand Kawasaki, and they were very lightweight. I can’t stand heavy glasses. Best guess is I will wind up with tortoise, with a light to dark fade. I don’t think I’ve tried any on like that, but it will be fun to see if my wild guess is correct. I had big glasses when I first started wearing them back in The 80’s, but I’ve gone fairly small and unobtrusive lately.
Help!!! It’s almost like a disability. I have good far vision, still 20/10, but close in vision I need reading glasses, and mid range a little fuzzy. They gave me some blended bifocals…hate them, you have to look directly at everything. I really only need them for flying, and it probably would be okay to wear reading glasses low on my nose, but that is irritating. Any other decent options?
I kind of like these rectangular plastic frames I have for my reading glasses…have a narrow face. I don’t know what is best!
re post #21. With light to darker blonde hair I totally see your point about those bold frames. Fine if you have a bold hair (dark) color but for me the only thing people would notice are the glasses! You want people to focus on YOU, not glasses that detract from your features!
Post #33-do you mean progressive lenses? One of the truths about aging is that you do need to change how you look at things because you eye muscles won’t do the same job they used to do. It takes getting used to. In fact I tried no lines then lined bifocals but those had no middle vision and went back to the progressive- over a decade ago. It IS a disability but with very good compensation now available.
Plastic versus metal. I broke so many plastic glasses eons ago. I like flexible hinges that I believe only come with metal. Big problem I have is while things get fit nicely I end up with a part touching my nose or near my hairline and my recent years’ nickel allergy. The cheap gold colors must contain too much nickel- for even titanium frames. Will complain when I go for my exam next month. Using clear nail polish where coating rubbed off. Never had a problem with more tortoise shell steel frames for decades. Arrgh.
I went to my local LensCrafters today, and didn’t find anything I liked. It was a good first step though. I’ve worn the very light weight no rim glasses for so long I have to work up to an actual frame.
I’m a fan on lightweight wire frames, even if the “fashion” is heavier plastic bold frames. I’m just not a fan of newer is better and never have been.
My last glasses were $900+. Progressives, 3.5-4.0 prescription and prisms. If I don’t get the special lightweight lenses, they would be coke-bottle thick. I have a new pair, big and teal lightweight metal, which I’m still getting used to on my face. I have a smaller pair of dark blues that I like a lot and am still wearing those. Other recent pairs were purple, ocean blue and coppery brown. Rimless washes me out terribly and I’m not motivated enough to wear makeup all the time to counter the effect.
My insurance will pay for one pair a year; after the new year, we are measuring my actual sitting distance from the computer screen to get some custom lenses to work at that distance, since I apparently sit at an unusual distance. We’re hoping that lenses for the right distance will also help with my posture so that my neck doesn’t bother me so much.
Used to wear contacts, but quit that when I was in the two-under-two phase and was changing diapers 25 times a day.
How not to look old also says you should cut bangs. Bangs look horrible on me.
I think there is a huge amount of ground between “young and hip” and “old lady.” I am 64. I am not going to look young and hip, no matter what I do. That doesn’t mean I have to look and/or feel like an ancient crone, either.
Unless you die young, you are going to age. If you have put all of your eggs in the “young and hip appearance” basket, you are not going to be happy.
"Help!!! It’s almost like a disability. "
“There are no stylish glasses just like there are no stylish crutches.”- My sister, when she got her first pair of eyeglasses.