bebop glasses, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bebop glasses n.

also bop glasses

[SE bebop, the style of jazz played in 1940s by such musicians as Charlie Parker, Kenny Clarke and Bud Powell, as well as Dizzy Gillespie; the glasses were popularized by the jazz stars of the 1940s, esp. Gillespie]

(US black) a style of dark glasses fashionable in the 1940s, with notably thick frames as well as blackened lenses.

1948		Central N.J. Home News 6 June 6/2: [He] has dark-brown curly hair and ‘beautiful blue eyes behind bebop glasses’.
1955		Hal Ellson Rock 46: He’s looking down at me [...] with bop glasses an inch thick.
1955		S. Allen Bop Fables 55: On the road he chanced to meet a gent with bebop glasses and suede shoes.
1965		Asheville Citizen-Times (NC) 4 Oct. 5: [photo caption] [T]he ‘ideally dressed’ college student wearing OP art hose, T-shirt and bebop glasses.
1972		(ref. to 1946) H.R. Huebel Things in the Drivers Seat 128: Symphony Sid was just about on the air at that time, or perhaps it was the next year, 1946, and he sold ‘bop glasses’ for a dollar, mail order.
1978		(con. 1940s) N.T. Davis Writings in Jazz 88: Many musicians wore ‘bebop glasses’ (sometimes only frames without lenses) because they thought eyeglasses made them look ‘more intelligent.’ The ‘bebop tam’ (the brimless French beret) was worn by those musicians who had [...] traveled to France .
1994		(ref. to 1940s) C. Major Juba to Jive 29: Bebop glasses n. (1940s) fashionable, thick-framed dark glasses [...] made popular by jazzmen such as Dizzy Gillespie.
2002		9:20 Deluxe 🌐 The Bebop Repertory Quintet — put on your BeBop glasses and see Pete Long, Mark Armstrong, Clark Tracey, Jimbo and Martin Litton working over Dizzy’s bebop at its furious best. Are you hip enough to take it.