Look out, it’s national eyewear day!

Post on 6th June 2017

Polish those lenses for an extra sparkle and celebrate National Eyewear Day today.

It’s a chance to sport those frames with pride and mark changing attitudes to the joy of specs.

Gone are the days when they were regarded as uncool or carried a stigma. Glasses now do not simply correct our sight, they are also a statement of style and a reflection of our personality.

They have certainly come a long way in technological advances and design.

Spectacles have been around for about seven centuries with early versions only worn by monks and scholars. The invention of the printing press in the mid 1400s saw an increase in literacy and the demand for eyewear grow too.

Early glasses were made from convex lenses, and only corrected long-sightedness and presbyopia. Later they were made with concave lenses to correct short sightedness. Glasses technology remained fairly basic for a long time, until US Founding Father Benjamin Franklin came up with varifocals. Frustrated by having to swap between two pairs of glasses for his long and short sightedness, he cut the lenses in half and fused them together.

Lens technology has been refined and perfected over the years, with options for superlight, scratch resistant plastic and with different coatings, tints and lenses that transition from light to dark depending on the light levels present.

Frame designs have also developed with creative materials and colour leaving us spoilt for choice. We can choose glasses to suit our lifestyles, face shape, hair colour and sense of personal style and not simply ones to meet our prescriptions.

Designer glasses from quality brands such as D&G, Hugo Boss and Gucci have opened our eyes to a range of possibilities.

For professional and friendly advice on choosing the frames and lenses to suit your needs, visit your local Scrivens store.