Early sunglasses served a special purpose and it wasn’t to block the rays of the sun. Smoke tinting was the first means of darkening eyeglasses, and the technology was developed in China prior to 1430. These darkened lenses were not vision-corrected, nor were they initially intended to reduce solar glare. For centuries, Chinese judges had routinely worn smoke-coloured quartz lenses to conceal their eye expressions in court. A judge’s evaluation of evidence as credible or mendacious was to remain secret until a trial’s conclusion.
Smoke-tinted lenses came to serve also as sunglasses, but that was never their primary function. And around 1430, when vision-correcting eyeglasses were introduced into China from Italy, they, too, were darkened, though mainly for judicial use.
James Ayscough began experimenting with tinted lenses in spectacles in the mid-18th century. These were not ‘sunglasses’ as such; Ayscough believed blue or green-tinted glass could correct for specific vision impairments. Protection from the sun’s rays was not a concern of his.
The popularity of sunglasses is really a 20th century phenomenon. And in America, the military, which played a role in the development of sunscreens, also was at the forefront of sunglass technology.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that modern-type sunglasses came to be. In 1929, Sam Foster, founder of the Foster Grant company sold the first pair of Foster Grant sunglasses on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. By 1930, sunglasses were all the rage.
In the 1930s, the Army Air Corps commissioned the optical firm of Bausch & Lomb to produce a highly effective spectacle that would protect pilots from the dangers of high-altitude glare. Company physicists and opticians perfected a special dark-green tint that absorbed light in the yellow band of the spectrum.
With World War II brewing in 1936, Ray Ban designed anti-glare aviator style sunglasses, using polarized lens technology newly created by Edwin H. Land, founder of the Polaroid Corporation.
They also designed a slightly drooping frame perimeter to maximally shield an aviator’s eyes, which repeatedly glanced downward toward a plane’s instrument panel. Fliers were issued the glasses at no charge, and the public in 1937 was able to purchase the model that banned the sun’s rays as Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses.
What helped make sunglasses chic was a clever 1960s’ style advertising campaign by the comb and glass firm of Foster Grant. Well-known fashion designers, as well as Hollywood stars, escalated the sunglass craze in the ‘70s with their brand-name lines. A giant industry developed where only a few decades earlier none existed.
