Google Wants to Make Looking Dorky Fashionable

Privacy issues aside, many believe that Google Inc. GOOG Glass makes you look like a dork. Google seems to agree but wants to convince you that looking dorky is a fashion statement.

According to The Atlantic, the September issue of Vogue magazine will feature Glass in a 12-page spread Google says is not an ad, but a full-blown editorially driven statement. And that statement is, “If wearing Glass makes you look dorky, then dorky is high fashion.”

The article in Vogue might go a long way toward overcoming one of the biggest hurdles in building wearable technology such as Glass and the many variants of computerized watches that have been in the news of late, according to The New York Times.

Related: The Smart Watch Field is Starting to Get Crowded

In fact, the whole “Glass makes you look like a dork” issue might overshadow the “Glass makes you seem like a peeping Tom” issue. The New York Times quoted Ari Mir, chief executive of San Francisco startup, Pocket Change, who said about his Glass spectacles, “I love them, they’re amazing, but I feel like a dork wearing them in public.” Mir added his hope that all this would change as the design changes and gets smaller.

Google however, sees the matter differently. In May, Bloomberg Businessweek talked to Sergey Brin, director of the Google Glass project who said, “You know, this is basically done.”

While Mir and others may wish for an evolutionary design change in Glass, Google’s tactic seems to be to change buyer perception, perhaps with the help of fashion articles like the upcoming one in Vogue.

Meron Gribetz has yet another idea. Gribetz started Meta, a company whose basic mission is to create computerized glasses that are stylish, cool, and non-distracting, according to Wired.

Reinforcing the stylish and cool mantra, Gribetz told Wired, “We want to make it look like a pair of Ray Bans, [so] it looks exactly like what you’re wearing anyway.”

Whether companies like Meta will force Google’s hand as far as design is concerned or whether Google will convince the world that dorky is the new cool, remains to be seen.

At any rate, according to Wired, social commentator and University of California at Santa Cruz doctoral student, Whitney Erin Boesel, said Google Glass will overcome privacy concerns and is fast becoming a status symbol much like products produced by Apple Inc. AAPL. “Google Glass,” Boesel said, “is the new iPhone.”

Some wish it were as stylish.

At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco had no position in any mentioned securities.