I’m Googley-Eyed for the Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses

I’m not the first to say it, but the creator of The White Lotus, Mike White, is a genius. He created a show about fabulous—and sometimes morally bankrupt—people confined to a luxury resort and forced to confront their demons, and it also stars fabulous people confined in a luxury resort and forced to confront their demons. Not only do the show’s characters have access to an open bar in an exotic location, so do the actors. Witness: the post-White Lotus drama swirling around season 3’s star-crossed lovers, Rick and Chelsea.

If you have not watched the show, do it now, cry, and come back. Rick and Chelsea were compelling, not because the story was well written (beautiful young women, it is not your job to save troubled older men! Ew!) but because Walton Goggins as Rick and Aimee Lou Wood as Chelsea had such incredible chemistry. In a time when everyone strives to look increasingly flawless and sexless, like a bunch of plastic dolls, you just couldn’t stop looking at them absolutely rocking their imperfect teeth and hairlines. They were jolie laide, louche, worldly. You just can’t attain that level of charisma by passing your photos through an AI filter.

Photograph: Walton Goggins

In a mysterious turn of events, considering their IRL chemistry, they appeared to have mysteriously unfollowed each other on Instagram. I can’t stop thinking about them. Since Aimee Lou Wood’s Stay Gold necklace is a little out of my budget, I instead got my hands on the Goggins Goggle Glasses. See what I mean? The man simply DGAF.

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Cowboy Cool

I became obsessed with Goggins after watching him in last year’s TV adaptation of Fallout. Jonathan Nolan’s show was so good that it made me try to play Fallout, the video game. (Everyone says I would love Fallout 76, but I’m having trouble getting past how old the graphics look.)

Even when he’s wearing a full face of skull makeup, Goggins as the Ghoul is an unimpeachable cowboy. His Architectural Digest feature on his Western-inspired, Hudson Valley home backs this up, and—as someone who is also restoring an older house—I am reasonably sure his entrepreneurial journey may be to fund all the work that needs to be done.

Photograph: Adrienne So

I first got the email about the Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses late last year. “Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses is funny to say, but I’m totally serious about sharing this brand with the world,” he says in the press release. I had thought the Goggle Glasses were a joke, not because of how they sound, but because of Goggins’ decidedly tongue-in-cheek Super Bowl ad for GoDaddy. Personally I’m inclined to attribute any success that the Goggle Glasses might have less to the AI web-building tools of GoDaddy Airo and more to the fact that I could spend all day listening to Goggins huskily murmur, “If your goggles ain’t Goggins, they don’t belong on your noggins”.

The goggles are not a joke. These are actually … great? The sunglasses are ski- and snowboarding-inspired, so they cover your entire eye and stay on your face via a wide, comfortable strap on the back. The lenses are polarized performance lenses made by Revo, the company that started out by manufacturing eyewear protection for NASA in the 1980s.

Photograph: Adrienne So

They’re also modular, so if the strap is just too weird-looking, you can clip in nose pads and arms, which is genius. That alone makes the sunglasses so much more comfortable and useful, especially if you like boating, biking, or other high-speed activities. Ski goggles sit a little farther off your face for better ventilation and give you a wider field of view, but I haven’t noticed any deficiencies in my peripheral vision; these would be great for spring skiing too.

Moreover, they come in five different colors (La Tortuga and Mama’s Skillet are back-ordered, but the blue is quite nice), and they’re reasonably priced, at $150 for the whole kit. That’s not cheap, but I’m also not going to be devastated if I drop them in the lake while I’m out on the pontoon boat with a beer in my hand. They also look—not bad! Although I have to say that my younger coworkers seem to appreciate them more than my older ones do.

Sail Away

Photograph: Walton Goggins

If you haven’t already watched the season finale then—spoiler alert—Rick and Chelsea die, because he can’t escape his demons. The demon that Chelsea can’t escape is Rick. Their deaths were foreshadowed the entire season, from Chelsea saying in episode 1 that she was going to get Rick his joy back, even if it kills her, to Chloe warning Chelsea that the romantic girls are the ones who always end up worse off in the end.

I do have to say that, despite our (my) obsession with this love affair, Rick and Chelsea didn’t have to be rich, and their storyline could’ve taken place on a whole other show. This is absolutely the wrong time for The White Lotus to stop making fun of all the horrific ways that the not-rich have to work around entitled rich people screwing with our lives.

Still, I would put up with much worse to watch Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood in almost anything else, and in the meantime, I can prepare for my own summer vacations with a pair of the Goggins Goggle Glasses. If nothing else, this gives me an excuse to repeatedly show other people Goggins’ Instagram, since my husband is absolutely sick of it. All you need for a little mystique of your own is a little spring skiing, with the wind whistling through your wisps of hair and your unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt.

Photograph: Walton Goggins