the-changing-social-norms-of-wearing-eye-wear
Did you know thattwo thirds of Britons need to wear corrective prescriptions. Of these people, 62% wear glasses and 14% wear contact lenses. Social and technological changes have influenced the flux and change in fashion trends and how we view wearing glasses over the years. First off, let's start in the 13th Century AD.
Monastic Scriptures
Eye wear is largely a misnomer before the 18th Century. This is because glasses were actually a single lens then, suspended on a chain and used for close up examination of monastic scriptures and illuminated book illustrations. Single lenses were the domain of monks living in the hallowed halls of a monastery. They used them for a specific task and then put them down again, sometimes on hooks at the side of their writing desk.
The Miser
The first depictions of people wearing glasses weren't kindly at all. Glasses back then were the preserve of the rich and those who hoarded money. So paintings of the Renaissance period often depict people wearing a monocle, hunched over and carefully weighing a gold in their hands. Penny-pinching, miserly people were commonly painted wearing one-piece spectacles. Famous examples include 'The Money Changers' and 'The Misers'. Wearing corrective eye wear was seen as being morally despicable, mean or that you were after people's money. So average person didn't want a bar of glasses in those days.
The PR Revamp
The invention of spectacle sides in the mid 18th Century, meant that spectacles could stay in place easier. They were still prohibitively expensive for the average person. Soon enough though, the rich commissioned paintings of themselves wearing them and a trend grew. Upper class Britons would wear them and be seen out in their sedan chair or carriage and waving gaily to friends on the streets of London. Soon every gentleman who wanted to portray a genteel or erudite image wanted glasses.
Martins Margins
In the 1750's An optician on Fleet Street, Benjamin Martin invented a new type of frame with inner margins made from horn or tortoiseshell called 'Martins Margins'. These glasses were enormously expensive and were handed down through the generations and worn by children and grandchildren, even if they were the completely wrong prescription, not to mention completely out of fashion.
Franklin Split Focals
These were named after the famous Benjamin Franklin who ordered split lenses of different powers from optician Peter Dollond in the 1760's. Franklin used them when he moved to France to read the menu, while also following the lips of people at the neighbouring table, to improve his French.
Hitler and Bono
Perhaps the most infamous non-wearer of spectacles is Hitler. He had a prescription of +2.50 but after he caught his megalomania in around 1925, he refused to wear his glasses. He believed that the glasses made him look ordinary and that they created a barrier between him and the German people. An identikit created by the American Secret Service after the war, puts Hitler in the pair of glasses. He looks just like anybody else on the street. Bono on the other hand, has refused to take his Armani sunglasses off for the past fifteen years. Indeed, his wife even calls him 'Bono' and not his given name of Paul Hewson. He has worn his glasses constantly, even during the night time and when meeting prime ministers, presidents and royalty. Perhaps he's worried about not being recognised without them.
The Invisible Specs
Around 1940, glasses were declared as being ugly. So young women everywhere tried to find glasses without frames, marketed as 'invisible' or 'barely there' in advertisements. Contact lenses at the time cost the same amount as a car, so it was either glasses or glasses for most women.
Lifestyle Dispensing
The 1950's era of prosperity and growth, meant glasses were cheaper to manufacture. A new trend grew that included having multiple pairs for different occasions like the home and the beach. The idea of eye glasses as fashion accessory has been around since then and never really left. With both sexes buying glasses purely as decoration for the top of the head and as the finishing touch to an outfit. Social trends have changed and gone in circles, but the same facts still remain. People need glasses to see, but they have also been important in how we see ourselves.
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