In 2007, Rich Cohen wrote a piece for Vanity Fair in which he grew a Hitler mustache in an attempt to defuse its powers. He didn’t.

No. You cannot extract the man from his mustache, nor the mustache from the man. But similarly, what is Dorothy without her slippers? Jackie O. without her pill-box hat? Marilyn without her mole? Not only are the icons lacking without their signature objects, but these fashion statements cannot be worn by anyone else without the burden of comparison.

And such it is with Buddy Holly and his glasses. A pair of thick black-rimmed glasses can be worn by no one else without the comparison. They still evoke Buddy Hollyism.

But back to Mr. Cohen. Another reason he chose to don the ‘stache was to examine whether the hair itself, strategically placed, could in itself make a person maddeningly evil. I found this an interesting concept, one that I intended to steal outright: transitioning it to Buddy Holly: I, myself, would wear the glasses, waiting to see if they could transmogrify me from musical nincompoop to revolutionary wunderkind.

Next, I got a guitar. I stood there. Wearing Buddy Holly glasses. I started strumming. Strum strum. It didn’t sound great. I started singing... “A-well-a-well-a...” It sounded awkward. I went outside wearing the glasses. I looked around. Hipsters left and right were wearing their “ironic” Buddy Holly glasses too. The sky didn’t sing out “Rave On” or “Peggy Sue” or “Everyday”, poodle skirts didn’t float by with malted milkshakes on the way to the drive-in. Nobody looked at me like they looked at Rich Cohen. I was just another fella in Buddy Hollys. Just another ubiquitous nerd with big glasses.

And then it happened.

All of a sudden I felt the strangest urge – the air in my lungs started to fluctuate and I started mumbling “Bop. Wop. Bop bop.” Some kid, also wearing Buddys took up the chime, singing “Bop. Wop. Bop bop.” And then without any feelings of reservation I belted forth “I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be!” The kid kept singing “Bop. Wop. Bop bop.” And I said, pointing to a hipsterette, herself wearing Buddy Hollys, “You’re gonna give-a your love to me.” And then, most shockingly, she sang, “I’m wanna love you night and day.” And I sang, “Well, you know my lover, not fade away.”

From all corners of the street the traffic froze and every driver – every single one of them wearing Buddys – they got out of their cars and started dancing in the street, all of them singing “Bop. Wop. Bop bop.” I jumped on top of a 1957 Caddy and I sang, “My love a-bigger than a Cadillac. I try to show it ‘n you drive-a me back.” And now the hipsterette, she too was on the Caddy, singing, “Your love for me, it got to be real. For you to know a-just how I feel.” And together we crooned, “A love for real, not fade away.”

The dancing continued, a crazed frenzy, and when the song finished we all threw our Buddys in the air – like graduation day – and as quickly as it started it ended and we moseyed on down the street, like it always was before... Whistling old tunes and donning fragments of the past.

Glasses featured throughout this issue: Barton Perreira’s Albert Maysles Collection in Sail Red, available exclusively at Barneys.