You might almost think it was a conspiracy: in December 2008, the Ray-Ban Remasters concert brought fashion types, musicians, and actors (including most of the cast of Gossip Girl) together to celebrate the re-launch of Ray-Ban’s Clubmaster sunglasses. Pictures went out to the press of the young, beautiful, and famous sporting shiny new versions of this 50’s-retro look. And now, come summer 2009, those distinctively shaped sunglasses are everywhere.

The Clubmasters are 2009’s back-to-the-future sunglass shape, unseating 2008’s favorite, the Ray-Ban Wayfarer. The Wayfarer, while fun and jaunty and easy to customize with different colors and patterns, reached saturation point last summer, and now tastes have moved on. Where the Wayfarer has a 1960s feel, having been immortalized by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, the Clubmaster looks further back in time to the 1950s.

The Clubmaster has a distinctive brow-only frame, pinned hinges, and slightly cat’s-eye shape. While basic black is certainly acceptable, especially if you want to work the Reservoir Dogs vibe, the Clubmaster has been re-issued in a rainbow array of colors, just like the Wayfarer was last year. Clubmaster sunglasses with pink, gold, deep blue, violet, and green frames have been spotted on the street. Savvy fashionistas can also kill two trends with one stone and buy a pair of tortoiseshell Clubmasters, capitalizing on the current vogue for all things tortoiseshell while also snapping up the late 1950’s glamour of these shades.

The Clubmasters may look retro, but they weren’t actually released by Ray-Ban until the 1980’s, hearkening back to the rockabilly looks of the 1950s. Browline glasses like the Clubmaster were a popular shape in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. Photograph after photograph from the era shows ordinary people and notables alike sporting browline glasses and sunglasses. Perhaps the most visible advocate of browline glasses was the controversial civil rights activist Malcolm X. Ray-Ban’s Clubmasters have a very similar shape to the frames Malcolm X favored, both for his eyeglasses and his sunglasses.

More recently, a host of celebrities and personalities have been spotted in the Clubmasters. Perhaps the most photographed of 2009’s crop is British actor Robert Pattinson, who plays the heartthrob vampire Edward in the Twilight saga. He, along with co-star Kristen Stewart, seem to wear Clubmasters exclusively, and their legions of fans are no doubt eager to follow suit. Singers Katy Perry and Beyonce Knowles have also been snapped out and about in the hip shades. Actresses Kiera Knightley and Natalie Portman, who played look-alike queens in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, have been wearing look-alike Clubmasters this summer while out on the town.

The suggested retail price for Ray-Ban Clubmaster sunglasses is about $120.00. That’s a little steep for something so trendy, but you can always trawl the Internet and the shops for copy cat glasses with a browline frame. You may find deals on the real version on eBay. Discount designer outlets exist, too, both in your town and on the Internet, where you can save a wedge of cash on a pair of genuine Ray-Ban Clubmasters.