The History of Designer Sunglasses

It has been said that the Roman emperor Nero held up polished emeralds to his eyes to watch gladiator fights in the 1st century. These most probably worked like mirrors. So, would it be right to say that the first designer sunglasses were used by the emperor Nero? Well it wouldn't be all that wrong if we take the price factor into consideration!

In the 9th century Abbas Ibn Firnas (latinized name Armen Firman) had found a way to finish sand into glass. These glasses which were called reading stones could be shaped and polished into round rocks making it possible to view through them.

The first sunglasses which were in the form of flat panes of smoky quartz were worn in China in the 12th century or possibly earlier by the judges in Chinese courts in order to hide their facial expressions from the witnesses. These glasses were not corrective but protected the eyes from glare.

Salvino D'Armate invented the first wearable eyeglasses around 1284 in Italy. The proof of this is the portrait of the Cardinal Hugh de Provence wearing eyeglasses by Tomaso de Modena in 1352.

In the 18th century James Ayscough an English apprentice to an optician had started to experiment with tinted lenses. Ayscough believed that blue or green tinted glass could correct certain vision impairiments. In the year 1752 he introduced the tinted glasses which was not intended to be used as sunglasses. Yellow, amber and brown tinted glasses were also prescribed in the 19th and the 20th centuries to people suffering from syphillis because of their sensivity to light.

In the beginning of the 20th century sunglasses became more widespread by the stars of silent movies. It was believed that at the time this was to avoid recognition by the fans, but in reality the reason was that the use of the powerful arc lights which were needed for extremely slow film stocks made the eyes of the stars very sore.

Mass produced cheap sunglasses were introduced to America by Sam Foster in 1929 and were sold on the beaches of Atlantic City, New Jersey under the name of Foster Grant. Sunglasses became first polarized by Edwin H. Land in 1936. Oakley developed thump sunglasses with built-in digital audio player in 2004.

Designer sunglasses are the name given to the sunglasses made by the designer label companies such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Gucci, Prada, Ray-Ban, Oakley, etc. Like everything else in the fashion world the models of the designer sunglasses change very frequently in order to be able to compete with each other. The prices of designer sunglasses can be very high and this has encouraged an illegal industry to develop to the extent that even the designers find it difficult to tell the difference between the genuine pair and the fake pair.