Picture the late-nineties nerd and what first comes to mind is a gangly teenage boy in khaki flood pants playing Dungeons & Dragons. Imagine, instead, a small girl in cropped plaid flares and a matching blazer, sobbing at the optometrist’s office. That would be nine-year-old me, a skinny kid teased at school—for wearing a fuzzy mink bomber instead of a North Face, for carrying a plastic binder of Pokémon cards—miserably holding a new pair of wire-rim frames.

I thought of that little four-eyed loser last February when I saw Alessandro Michele’s Gucci debut. The Gucci of my youth, of course, was the height of the Tom Ford era—slinky white jersey and little black dresses, all cool and confident. But here, Michele seemed to say, was the 21st-century Gucci girl, an eccentric, fresh-faced weirdo who wasn’t afraid to wear backless fur-lined loafers, to personify the idea of “ugly pretty.” And oh, were there glasses: Alexandra Elizabeth Ljadov in dripping red chiffon, Laura Hagested in a Margot Tenenbaum fur, and seventeen other models walked the runway in oversize tortoiseshell frames. Finally, the nerd had arrived—at slick, sexy Gucci, of all places—and my younger self was amazed. My current self, however, was not too surprised.

After all, the return of the nerd in fashion reflects the times we live in. When Lupita Nyong’o stepped onstage at this year’s Golden Globes in frothy Giambattista Valli Haute Couture and black acetate frames, the Internet went wild—red carpet glasses felt fresh, yet utterly of the moment. Nyong’o, by the way, is set to appear in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, easily the year’s most hyped film, and one in a long string of geek cultural touchstones gone mainstream: the rise of Marvel Studios, and now, the DC Universe with Ben Affleck as Batman; the high fantasy mania of Game of Thrones; the upcoming Ghostbusters remake, with sexy secretary Chris Hemsworth in thick black lenses. The nerd has infiltrated our lives, from pop culture to work culture—the second coming of Silicon Valley with Mark Zuckerberg, et al.—and now, fashion, too.