GQ Hype

Kurt Cobain's sunglasses taught a whole generation of kids how to be cool

Kurt Cobain's sunglasses, worn one grey day in 1993, not long before he would take his own life, have left a style legacy of their own. GQ Features Director Jonathan Heaf takes a look back at Jesse Frohman's haunting photographs and reconsiders this seminal moment
Image may contain Sunglasses Accessories Accessory Human Person Finger and Face
Jesse Frohman

Kurt Cobain's sunglasses had more impact on me than Kurt Cobain’s cardigan. Remember that oversized mohair cardigan? The moss-green, fleecy number the Nirvana singer wore for his MTV Unplugged session?

Don’t get me wrong, that was an excellent cardigan. In fact, that same cardigan (allegedly worn only once by Cobain, in 1993) was sold at auction in 2015 for a whopping $137,500, roughly £93,000, a snip when you consider its reverberating cultural relevance.

Jesse Frohman

That cardigan is the Rosetta Stone of Nineties grunge style, the equivalent of what a drab flannel shirt, NHS specs and Steve Jobs' dad jeans must be to Ed Sheeran fans. Too harsh? Without that baggy, raincloud-grey cardigan, fashion history, hell history history would be entirely different.

Every holiday, every teenage jaunt I went on I desperately sought out a similar style

There would be no Marc Jacobs, no Hedi Slimane, no Pete Doherty (maybe), in fact, no menswear as we know it all. We’d all be wondering around like drones in full Adidas tracksuits – the Marseille tuxedo, as it’s been coined – like Armie Hammer on a never-ending Call Me By Your Name press junket. Just, you know, significantly less handsome.

Those Kurt Cobain sunglasses though. Oof. No, not the cherry red ones he wore to the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles – twinned with a Breton top and his daughter's milk bottle – but those white numbers as worn in that incredible session by photographer Jesse Frohman in 1993.

Jesse Frohman

Frohman has since released a beautiful coffee table book about that shoot, Kurt Cobain: The Last Session published by Thames & Hudson, and has gone into considerable detail about his own experiences behind the lens that day. “It was the only time I photographed him and Nirvana...” Frohman told Rolling Stone. “We had set up for a shoot in New York when they were going to perform at Roseland Ballroom, so we had the whole day to shoot. That was the original assignment, but, of course, things didn’t turn out the way we planned.”

Jesse Frohman

On those shades specifically Frohman recalled: "You know, he was very stoned, yet he was coherent on some level and gone on another level. I had met people like that before, but this was unique because I was shooting someone with these glasses on. He wouldn't take the glasses off, so I couldn't really make eye contact easily. I wish I got his glasses off, but to me now, I think there's something about this shoot that you don't need to see his eyes."

As a teenager back then those large oval shades, a bit space age, a bit trippy, a bit WFT, were the sort of style tic a wannabe antihero (yours truly) could mimic without breaking the Natwest piggy bank. Over the next year or so those iconic images shot by Frohman were published and republished – mostly in my mind – and every shopping trip, every holiday, every teenage jaunt I went on I desperately sought out a similar style.

Jesse Frohman

Thanks to Frohman and Cobain’s chipped nail varnish, those oval shades became one of the most recognisable symbols of the late singer’s rebellious persona, the acetate windows into his tortured, gifted soul. I needed a pair. As did every other kid in my school who wore ripped faded jeans and their father’s old moth-eaten brown jumpers...

Eventually, I had to settle on a pair of shades that were the same oversize shape, but rather than ice-white they were cream with a leopard print frame. I don’t know why but they made sense, perhaps because of the animal print coat worn by Cobain in those same shots. Of course, unlike Cobain my sunglasses were an affectation rather than to hide anything more hedonistic or sinister; my stoner lifestyle was more stoner style, less stone life, aged 15.

Jesse Frohman

When the whole Nineties nostalgia thing blew up a few years ago, the original maker of those sunglasses, Christina Roth, reissued the exact frames – the Series 6558 – and the style was seen on everyone from Lil Yachty, Sofia Richie and Migos.

OK, I get why some feel such stylistic appropriation is a little lame – like taking a drag but not inhaling, right? Well, such is Cobain’s legacy that those shades, still to this day, project an air of punk rock, give-a-damn cool. They work. Especially when worn indoors. At night. All you need to do is bring the stroppy nonchalance. Oh, and the ability to sum up an entire generation's angst and anxiety in three chords. Good luck.

Jesse Frohman

Kurt Cobain: The Last Session by Jesse Frohman is out now. jessefrohman.com; @jessefrohman

Follow us on Vero for exclusive music content and commentary, all the latest music lifestyle news and insider access into the GQ world, from behind-the-scenes insight to recommendations from our Editors and high-profile talent.

NOW READ

Best sunglasses for 2018

Dave Grohl: 'Trump just seems like a massive jerk'

Amazing photographs of the world’s most famous musicians