This book provides an overview for identifying and dating vintage eyewear for the growing numbers of collectors. Explore ways in which eyeglass design has developed to reflect both popular fashion and scientific investigation.The designs of frames and lenses were changed as more comfortable and practical styles were invented. In the mid-twentieth century, eyeglass makers carefully sought high profile entertainers to wear their designs in order to promote their companies. Advertising worked its magic and the general public came to prefer the advertised designs. Examples of eyewear from the sevententh century to the present are shown in over 600 color photos and explained in an engaging text. Bifocals, monocles, pince-nez, fanciful and safety styles of eyeglasses and sunglasses are shown along with some price estimates.

From 13th century Franciscan monks to Beyoncé in Black is King, Making a Spectacle charts the fascinating ascension of eyeglasses—from an unsightly but useful tool to fashion's must-have accessory. The power of glasses to convey a range of vivid messages about their wearers have made them into a billion-dollar business that appeals to cool kids and rock stars, and those who want to be like them, but the fashionable history of eyeglasses is fraught with anxiety and drama. At the beginning of the 20th century, the assessment in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar was that spectacles were "invariably disfiguring." Invisibility was the best option, and glasses were only to be put on once the lights at the opera went dark. While variations of that glasses-shaming sentiment appeared at regular intervals over the next 100 years or so, eyeglasses continued to evolve into an endless array of shapes, colors, purposes, and personalities. Once sunglasses took off in the 1930s, the magazine editorial made glasses a conspicuous part of the fashion narrative. Eyeglasses went to the ski slopes, the stables, the beach, the Havana hotel. Plastic innovations made a candy-colored rainbow of cat-eyes and "starlet" styles possible. Suddenly, everyone had the opportunity to look like Jackie O on vacation in Capri. Making a Spectacle traces contemporary high fashion frames back to their origins: the military aviator, the glam cat eye, the nerdly Oxford, the high-tech shield, the fanciful butterfly, the lowly rimless, and other styles all make an appearance. Featuring interviews with influential designers, makers, and purveyors of glasses including Adam Selman, Kerin Rose Gold, and l.a. Eyeworks, Making a Spectacle also takes a look at today's most cutting edge eyewear, showing the reader the latest and most innovative ways to see and be seen.

This text examines the eyewear industry in America from 1900 to 2008, a period which mirrors an increased demand for eyewear. Eyeglasses, sunglasses and contacts are discussed. Topics covered include the marketing and selling of eyewear with particular attention paid to advertising strategies and the internal structures of the industry and its regulations, which have sometimes helped and sometimes hurt consumers. This critical examination reveals how a relatively simple and functional item such as corrective eyewear could be transformed through marketing into a fashion accessory and a personal statement.

Drawing on a wonderful array of sources, from fashion magazines to department store records, this book is the rich and absorbing narrative and analysis of how New York sportswear evolved to become the definitive American style and how a modern fashion aesthetic was born.

From monocles to pince-nez and goggle-eyes, a cultural and technological history of glasses in fact and fiction. This book examines those who wore glasses through history, art, and literature, from the green emerald through which Emperor Nero watched gladiator fights to Benjamin Franklin’s homemade bifocals, and from Marilyn Monroe’s cat-eye glasses to the famed four-eyes of Emma Bovary and Harry Potter. Spectacles are objects that seem commonplace, but In the Blink of an Eye shows that because they fundamentally changed people’s lives, glasses were the wellspring of a quiet social, cultural, and economic revolution. Indeed, one can argue that modernity itself began with the paradigm shift that transformed poor eyesight from a severely limiting disease—treated with pomades and tinctures—into a minor impairment that can be remedied with mechanisms constructed from lenses and wire.

The first three decades of the twentieth century saw a lot of change in America. This period, before, during and after the First World War, saw America emerge into a nation with industry, wealth and power in the new modern age. With this came a new American society in which an increasing number of people could afford time for leisure and extra money that could be spent on it. This emerging middle class was now able to spend their money on things that were previously only available to the very upper classes. Cars, vacations, and entertainment were suddenly available to the masses.