Rimless eyeglasses

[1] Rimless glasses lenses are held in place (or "mounted") by way of a series of screws, or hollow plastic double rivets (called "bushings" or "compression plugs") that fit into two holes in the lens.

Bushing based rimless mounts are, however, designed so that the pins can pull out of the lenses without causing damage, which reduces repair cost and duration.

[4] Rimless glasses were first widely offered as pince-nez, with manufacturers arguing that the design was superior to extant eyeglasses because it secured the lenses directly to the nose and kept them in place.

[3] As more optometrists began to diagnose astigmatism, the pince nez became less practical because of subtle shifts in the position of the lenses caused by the wearer moving his or her head.

[4][8] Also in the 1920s, a new style appeared in which an "arch" connected the bridge to the temples, to provide extra stability for the lenses; the mounting technique was referred to as "Shurset" ("sure set").

[4] Although the design would be considered a variant of "semi-rimless" glasses in the latter part of the 20th century, the style was considered rimless upon its inception because no part of the lens was secured inside of a frame; modern semi-rimless eyewear features lenses partially secured inside of a half-frame, with the lower portion of the lens held in place by nylon wire.

[2] In the 1980s, Rimways were often featured in movies to indicate that a character was an intellectual; Wilford Brimley wore a pair as scientist Blair in The Thing, as did Corey Feldman while playing a child inventor in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

Paul Verhoeven chose a pair for Kurtwood Smith to wear as villain Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop specifically because the glasses' intellectual associations would clash with the character's violent personality, a contradiction that he believed recalled the similarly bespectacled Heinrich Himmler.