This actress, film producer, and businesswoman has appeared in many different movies and TV shows over the years, known as an icon of style. Are her glasses just another fashion trend, or does she really need them?

Jennifer Aniston needs and wears glasses. In her early career, she often wore colored contacts both in public and when she was filming, but in more recent years she has embraced more of the prescription glasses and sunglasses look.

Read more below to find out about Aniston’s TV and movie looks, why she chose contacts over glasses early on, and her personal style.

The Life of an Actor

As an actor, it’s important to fully embody whichever character you’re playing. Every little detail goes into the formation of the character, even whether they wear glasses or not.

In many movies, especially those directed towards teens and younger viewers, there’s usually a scene where the main female character gets some sort of makeover, replacing her glasses with contacts and given masterful makeup so that she can be beautiful.

It’s a common, though harmful and inaccurate belief, that wearing contacts makes someone more attractive than wearing glasses. Aniston proves this belief wrong, showing that anyone can be beautiful with or without them.

The public agrees, praising Aniston’s appearance in glasses on social media in posts like this one or this one. So why the original switch to contacts?

Aniston did wear glasses for a long time at the start of her career, both in public and in auditions, but found it difficult to land a role with them. In switching to contacts, she could change up her appearance to fit whatever role she was going for, without having to work around her glasses.

That may not still be true today, as wearing glasses has become more of a fashion statement as there come to be more and more styles and frames to choose from. If the character doesn’t wear glasses, then no problem–as long as the actor is okay with it, they can easily find some contacts to switch into for the role.

Aniston’s On Screen and Off Screen Appearances

The question of Aniston’s eyesight wasn’t raised for a long time, since the public was so used to her glasses-less appearance from her wearing contacts wherever she went. It wasn’t until more recently, in seeing her playing someone other than the iconic Rachel Green from Friends, that people started to wonder if she needed glasses.

In fact, of all the Friends characters, Chandler was the one to get the most questions about eyesight. Played by Matthew Perry, Chandler doesn’t wear glasses until the seventh season, and for the rest of the show, he wears them all of the time. 

Aniston’s characters never had that much of a change, either wearing glasses on and off or simply not wearing glasses. In movies like Just Go With It with Adam Sandler or The Switch with Jason Bateman, and others, she has scenes both with and without glasses.

In more recent interviews and public appearances, Aniston has switched to wearing prescription glasses or sunglasses.

She’s also talked about some old fashion trends she started–and she didn’t even like them then. Her public image and personal style sometimes clashed, but she still managed to look great anyway.

In an interview with Glamour, Aniston talks about how her tiny sunglasses, which looked like this, were “ridiculous.” She said, “I’m not a fan of those little tiny spectacles; I’m a fan of classic sunglasses.”

There’s also some speculation about her true eye color–it’s fairly well known that she often wears colored contacts, and while there hasn’t been a clear answer, many fans speculate that her eyes are naturally brown.

Watch the YouTube video below to see Jennifer Aniston reflect on her past looks, as well as her needing a pair of glasses to read them.

ncG1vNJzZmiblaGyo63NrK6eqqNjsLC5jp2mnqtdn7KvusifnKtlkaO2tMDOp2SwnZGneqi4wKyqnqtf