Nero in Sunglasses

Like any modern open stadium, glare was a problem for spectators in Rome’s Coliseum back in the day of the Emperor Nero. History tells us that to reduce the sun’s glare Nero watched the gladiator spectacles through “glasses” made of a polished green gem. According to Roman historian Pliny, the gem was emerald, known then as smaragdus and emperor Nero viewed the games by means of a polished smaragdus lens. The word ‘emerald’ comes to us through a corruption of the Latin smaragdus.

Spectacles resembling modern sunglasses were used in China prior to the fifteenth century, kept in place with weights that hung down behind the ears. The quartz lenses in these early glasses were not intended to reduce glare, but rather smoke-tinted especially for Chinese magistrates who wore them to conceal their eye expressions during court proceedings. Later vision-correcting eyeglasses were imported into China from Italy and they too were darkened for judicial use.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries yellow-amber and brown-tinted spectacles were prescribed for people with syphilis because sensitivity to light was a symptom of the disease. But the popularity of sunglasses is a phenomenon like so many others, stemming from military research. The Army Air Corp was looking for something to cut high-altitude glare for pilots. Physicists and opticians for Bausch & Lomb developed a dark green tint that absorbed light in the yellow band of the spectrum and not much later the public was able to purchase glasses called Ray-Ban aviator glasses. Foster Grant is the oldest American sunglasses company. Founder Sam Foster sold his first pair of sunglasses at a five-and-dime store on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, but it wasn’t until their 1960s advertising campaign that sunglasses became chic. Foster Grant’s “Sunglasses of the Stars” ad campaign featured Hollywood celebrities like Elke Sommer and Anita Ekberg wearing the glasses, with copy asking, “Isn’t that…behind those Foster Grants?” Well-known fashion designers along with movie stars escalated the craze and by the 1970s Hollywood and the fashion industry were having a huge impact on the sunglasses market.

There was a time in the past when women cultivated an allure with the use of fans or an umbrella tilted over the face. In our day modern women, as well as men do it with sunglasses.

Tortoiseshell Crisis

Remember back in 1965 while filming Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine Annette Funicello announced in the tabloids that her worst nightmare come to life was the day her hair rollers disappeared? I’m sure it was horrible, but then we all have our nightmares.

Sensitivity to strong light is a daily problem for many people, and in my case even the thought of leaving home without sunglasses is enough to bring on a squint. Harsh light along the coast of Florida is often hard on sensitive eyes, and other climates as well no kinder to certain eyes, mine among them. A rainy late afternoon in Seattle would probably see me in sunglasses. And with that dependency, being without is not an option. Sunglasses in my world are not anything I want to leave at home, forget in a restaurant, carelessly break or ever be without.

For so many years I’ve lost count, the same pair of Ralph Lauren Polo sunglasses has been my daily walk out the door and forget-me-not accessory. So long ago, it’s hard now to remember where I bought them, but something makes me think they are from a Tokyo optician in Shibuya named Paris Miki. Can’t recall the price but if it was Tokyo then they were probably expensive. The glasses are Italian made of tiger tortoiseshell, proven strong through multiple lens changes, hard travel and the occasional fall to the floor. For a long time they have been as much a trusted friend as a useful tool.

Too bad that such good things eventually come to an end. My old stand by sunglasses are in their last days and won’t last much longer. They are dying of old age and have a fragility about them that translates as worn out, used up and falling to pieces. A trip to the local optician only proved the case. I took them in hoping they could turn a screw, make an adjustment and tighten up the tired frames, but learned that the old specs are beyond help. No surprise to anyone, Ralph Lauren discontinued this particular style long ago, making a replacement pair near impossible. Tortoiseshell sunglasses in a design not greatly different are still in the Polo line up and that will likely be the solution. Brand wise I'm not married to Ralph Lauren and would be just as happy with Magnavox or Plymouth, but they don’t do tortoiseshell, which is my true eyeglass love.