Sunglasses : Designer Sunglasses: All About Sunglasses

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All About Sunglasses

Any time of year, sunglasses had better be a part of your day by day heath-consciousness routine. Sunglasses are not just for summers on the beach any longer or just for appearing cool and mysterious. Designer shades are no longer just for affluent movie stars. Sunglasses are essential in protecting your eyes from the lasting damaging effects of Ultra Violet radiation.

Sunglasses in some form have been around for a very long time. Roman Emperor Nero made sunglasses by looking on gladiator competitions through polished up light emerald green gemstones held up to his eyes. The true invention of sunglasses was somewhere between 1268 and 1289.

Before 1430, smoky quartz, flat-paned sunglasses were worn by Judges in the courtrooms of China to hide any expression in their eyes. Prescription sunglasses were developed in Italy in 1430 and were later used by the Chinese Judges. In the mid 18th Century, James Ayscough developed blue and green restorative lenses, beginning the use of sunglasses for adjusting optical impairments.

Until 1730 when Edward Scarlett fabricated hardened sidepieces, there were problems in keeping glasses propped on the nose. Glasses frames had been made of leather, bones and metal and sidepieces began as silk strips of ribbon that looped around the ears. Instead of loops, the Chinese added ceramic weights to the ends of the ribbons. Benjamen Franklin’s invention of bifocal lenses followed in 1780.

By the 20th Century, sunglasses were used to protect the eyes from the sun. In 1929 Sam Foster’s “Foster Grants” represented the first mass-produced sunglasses and they began the movement of sunglasses for fashion.

In the 1930’s the Army Air Corps asked Bausch & Lomb to develop sunglasses that would efficiently reduce high-altitude sun glare for pilots and they came up with dark green tinted shades that absorbed light through the yellow spectrum.

Edward H. Land had devised the Polaroid filter and by 1936 he applied it in making sunglasses and soon, sunglasses became “cool.” Movies stars began wearing sunglasses to hide behind and for fashion. Aviator glasses became fashionable the movie stars and the general public in 1937 after Ray Ban formulated the anti-glare sunglasses using polarization. The longer lens was created to give more protective cover to pilots’ eyes from light reflecting off their control panels.

By the 1970’s Hollywood stars and fashion designers made a huge impact on the sunglasses market. Clothing designers and stars put their names on glasses and sunglasses and everybody had to have them. In 2007, stars are still hiding out behind their over sized designer sunglasses, causing fashion statements and protecting their eyes from the harmful effects of the Ultra Violet radiation.
Nowadays trendy designer sunglasses are a status symbol; all the same, in order to be stylish in sunglasses, you don’t have to give up quality. Quality designer sunglasses can be polarized to reduce the glare of sunlight reflecting off surfaces like the highway, cars, water or snow. Polarized shades work by blocking off horizontal light reflections and only let in vertical light reflections. The polarization of designer sunglasses makes them stylish in other areas of lifestyle like golfing, boating, biking, swimming, fishing and aircraft flying.

Marketers of designer sunglasses aim at children who pick out the same hot styles and brand-names as their parents and their idols. Sunglasses for children have Disney and cartoon characters in many colors, shapes and styles. Children’s designer sunglasses can also be polarized to block the harmful UV radiation.

With modern engineering and advances, the making of sunglasses continues to evolve. We have gone from holding green gems up to our eyes to Oakley’s 2004 sunglasses with digital audio players built in.