Vintage Sunglasses

habberdasher · Jul 24, 2009

I get kind of claustrophobic with close-fitting wear...do you think the glasses I showed are 1920s?

Levallois · Jul 24, 2009

habberdasher said:
I have the same hat size as you-but the glasses are sliding up and not even resting on your ear in the photo!

I said barely. And people seemed to like them on me. However, I like the straightening out by heating idea. We shall see.

As far as the glasses that you displayed from S. Dakota - I don't know what era they are from but they are distinctly beautiful!

habberdasher · Jul 24, 2009

I can't buy the ones from South Dakota-They're 4.5" from rim to rim! I couldn't pull that off. Yours are 5"? I found some retrostyledJaguar shades with a bit of a modern flair-aluminum, and a slightly different styled frame, but with GREAT UV protection and lenses. Made by my favorite motor car-Jaguar!

Cherry_Bombb · Jul 24, 2009

Miss Bella Hell- Love those!! They suit your face really well. I wish I could wear cat eye glasses- I look ridiculous.

These are my two pair. They're very much alike- same color lenses, same shape. But the ones on my friend Jennifer are larger and seem to look like they're more sized for a man. (I'm in the middle, Jennifer's to the far right). Does anyone have an opinion on this? Were these made unisex or were there specific sizes in this style that were made for men?

A closeup of my glasses

Levallois · Jul 24, 2009

habberdasher said:
I can't buy the ones from South Dakota-They're 4.5" from rim to rim! I couldn't pull that off. Yours are 5"?

Yes, mine are 5 inch, although 5 1/2 would be perfect. Too bad about the S. Dakota glasses.

habberdasher · Jul 25, 2009

Yeah, and they were only $13!

PoohBang · Jul 25, 2009

These are my mid 50's Ray ban Wayfarers...

more pics of them on my blog...

MisterGrey · Jul 25, 2009

Cherry_Bombb said:
Miss Bella Hell- Love those!! They suit your face really well. I wish I could wear cat eye glasses- I look ridiculous.

These are my two pair. They're very much alike- same color lenses, same shape. But the ones on my friend Jennifer are larger and seem to look like they're more sized for a man. (I'm in the middle, Jennifer's to the far right). Does anyone have an opinion on this? Were these made unisex or were there specific sizes in this style that were made for men?

Prior to about the middle 1950s, all glasses, both for vision and for blocking out the sun, were unisex. The idea of creating distinctively feminine eyewear did not come about until browline eyeglasses and Buddy Holly-style frames hit the apex of their popularity; Cat's eye glasses, which were available in horn-rims and browlines, were the first gender-specific eyewear. (And even here you can split hairs, as horn-rim cat's eyes were actually worn by men at one point. They simply proved more popular with women, and so manufacturers exaggerated the corners and added decoration to appeal to their broader market. "Masculine" cat's eyes-- those with less pointed corners and no rhinestones or the like-- simply faded out of style and the gender lines were drawn).

BellyTank · Jul 26, 2009

MisterGrey said:
Prior to about the middle 1950s, all glasses, both for vision and for blocking out the sun, were unisex.

I disagree.

B
T

Levallois · Jul 26, 2009

BellyTank said:
I disagree.

B
T

Well, that's fine. However, it might help us decide the merits of your argument if you were to explain why you disagree.

MisterGrey · Jul 26, 2009

I'm curious, myself, considering that prior to the 50s one would be hard pressed to find eyeglass frames in anything other than simple geometric shapes-- round, oval, rectangle, and octagonal. The only "exceptions" were teardrop-shaped frames like the P3 and pilot's aviators, the latter of which was almost exclusively used for sunglasses for many years. The post WWII boom in plastics helped to usher in the era of his and hers eyeglass frames, as manufacturers began to experiment more with shapes and sizes that had been heretofore impractical. One could perhaps argue that larger sizes could be considered masculine and smaller sizes feminine-- eyeglass frames of the era ranged from about a 40mm diameter to a 46mm-- but the styles were identical and could be worn accordingly depending on one's head size.

I'm still interested, though, to hear your argument for gender-specific frames being widely available prior to the 50s, though.

Cherry_Bombb · Jul 26, 2009

Levallois and MisterGrey, that makes a lot of sense! Whenever I'm at events, there are a handful of people who have glasses that look exactly the same- worn by men and women. Thanks for helping me figure that out!

Belly Tank, if you have something you'd like to add, I'd really like to hear it.

pablocham · Jul 26, 2009

BT is right. Solarex marketed women's sunglasses in the 1940s.

And here is a pic from Valentino's funeral showing what are clearly women's sunglasses:

pablocham · Jul 26, 2009

Life Magazine 1947: http://images.google.com/hosted/lif...ages?q=girl+sunglasses+source:life&hl=en&sa=G

MisterGrey · Jul 26, 2009

I'm not so certain that those were necessarily "women's" sunglasses being worn by the mourner; the 1920s had some pretty bizarre fashions, which stretched across both sides of the gender aisle.

I'll admit to standing corrected, though, insofar as those 1947 frames go. I know that women's eyeglass styles branched out of squared horn-rims and browlines, so I suppose I should correct my statement to post-WWII instead of mid-1950s.

pablocham · Jul 27, 2009

MisterGrey said:
I'm not so certain that those were necessarily "women's" sunglasses being worn by the mourner; the 1920s had some pretty bizarre fashions, which stretched across both sides of the gender aisle.

I'll admit to standing corrected, though, insofar as those 1947 frames go. I know that women's eyeglass styles branched out of squared horn-rims and browlines, so I suppose I should correct my statement to post-WWII instead of mid-1950s.

Mistergrey, you would learn more about vintage clothing and fashion by spending 10 hours looking at vintage photographs than you would in a million years spent on this forum. Why don't you take a little time off from hypothesizing and postulating and generalizing and just look at photos of what people actually wore back then. Maybe you could start this process by looking for a photograph, illustration or some other worthwhile evidence of a man wearing two-tone sunglasses (or, for that matter, any glasses) with two inch wide temples during the 1930s or 1940s.

Miss_Bella_Hell · Jul 27, 2009

pablocham said:
Mistergrey, you would learn more about vintage clothing and fashion by spending 10 hours looking at vintage photographs than you would in a million years spent on this forum. Why don't you take a little time off from hypothesizing and postulating and generalizing and just look at photos of what people actually wore back then. Maybe you could start this process by looking for a photograph, illustration or some other worthwhile evidence of a man wearing two-tone sunglasses (or, for that matter, any glasses) with two inch wide temples during the 1930s or 1940s.

.........no need to be a jerk, incidentally.

Dinerman · Jul 27, 2009

pablocham said:
Maybe you could start this process by looking for a photograph, illustration or some other worthwhile evidence of a man wearing two-tone sunglasses (or, for that matter, any glasses) with two inch wide temples during the 1930s or 1940s.

The ones in that photograph very similar, other than color, to the ones worn by the man in the second ad.
Both ads have men wearing sunglasses with two inch (or so) temples, both are from 1939, are both are from this same thread.

Marc Chevalier said:
From 1939:

And a pair in the flesh.

pablocham · Jul 27, 2009

Miss_Bella_Hell said:
.........no need to be a jerk, incidentally.

I will try to live with it.

Marc Chevalier · Jul 27, 2009

.

pablocham said:
MisterGrey, you would learn more about vintage clothing and fashion by spending 10 hours looking at vintage photographs than you would in a million years spent on this forum.

With all due respect to Pablocham, I’ll save you those 10 hours.

The truth is, both MisterGrey and Pablochan are correct. Back in the 1920s, a few original, flamboyant (and expensive) sunglasses for ladies only were targeted at the luxury market. Less affluent ladies --that is, most women-- wore sunglasses which were essentially smaller-sized versions of those made for men. The difference lay in their dimensions, not designs.

In the latter half of the 1930s, 'ladies-only' sunglasses began to be mass produced and marketed.

MisterGrey said:
I'm not so certain that those were necessarily "women's" sunglasses being worn by the mourner; the 1920s had some pretty bizarre fashions, which stretched across both sides of the gender aisle.

That photo of the mourner is from the 1930s, not the '20s.

.

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