The short answer on Best Aviator Sunglasses for Women: pick one anchor piece, keep the palette to two colours, and let the shoes decide how formal the whole thing reads. Repeat one element, a metal, a texture or a colour, and an outfit looks deliberate. One piece should lead and the rest should stay quiet; two competing pieces read as an accident. Frame width should match the widest part of your face, not your eye spacing. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is frame width, lens depth and nose fit. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: casablancaparis.com's Lime Spiral Sunglasses at $295, and A.P.C.'s Les Carrées sunglasses at $183. The first is the considered buy; the second is the one to start with. Frame width should match the widest part of your face, not your eye spacing. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

Frames are the accessory people see first. Buy the shape, not the logo. From the second group, Wild Oak Boutique's Can't Be Outdone Sunglasses ($24) is the one that earns its place, because it works in more than one context without being restyled. The third group is smaller and deliberately narrower, frames, for the decisions you make after the main one. None of this needs the whole group. One piece from each is usually enough.

There are 20 frames here from 12 brands, $24 to $415, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. Wild Oak Boutique's Can't Be Outdone Sunglasses at $24 is the low-risk way in, and loveshackfancy.com's LoveShackFancy x KREWE STL II Sunglasses at $415 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. On best aviator sunglasses for women specifically: the difference between the top and the bottom of this list is real but smaller than the price gap suggests. Nothing here is included because it is famous, and price is not used as a proxy for quality anywhere on this page. If you take one thing away: one considered purchase beats three hedged ones.