The History Of Glasses

 

There is a gravestone in Florence Italy with the date 1317 and the epitaph “Here lies Silvano d’Amato degli Amati of Florence, inventor of spectacles, may God forgive his sins”

 

It is not clear whether his sins were of a general nature or more specifically concerned with his invention of spectacles.  Indeed it is not certain that he actually was the inventor of spectacles;  there being several other claimants to this dubious accolade, notably the Chinese. In view of the vast number of spectacle frames produced in China these days, their claim may well be true.

 

It is probable that if any of the models produced by these inventors are still around, they will be in a museum rather than in the showcase of a High Street Optician.  The public demand being for this year’s designer frames rather than last year’s.

 

Design of spectacles did not change very much for several decades, and changes were motivated by technical rather than aesthetic considerations.  By the time of the introduction of the National Health Service in the UK in 1948, glasses were not vastly different from those of the late nineteenth century.  A range of frames was selected from what was available at that time but the majority were considered to be “out of fashion”, although some less polite descriptions were not unheard.

 

In the early 1950’s a brand new product appeared in the more progressive opticians’ practices…. the “Fancy Frame”. This incredible innovation came in shapes and colours which would have been inconceivable a few years earlier.  Shapes such as Butterfly, Upswept and Harlequin and colours such as Champagne, Heliotrope and Pink Snowflake appeared on the optical scene.

 

Such frames of course were not available under the NHS that according to one Minister of Health “was not intended to follow the vagaries of fashion”.  Indeed, the NHS frame range was not extended until the early 1980’s and then by only one frame, which took little account of fashion, vague or otherwise.     

 

In 1984 the optical business was opened up to competition and the opticians’ monopoly was ended, although how a retail market with 8000 outlets constituted a monopoly was not made clear.  The public was told that this would bring massive benefits now that NHS glasses were no longer available and everyone would now have to pay privately.  However, there was subsequently a big improvement in the choice of frames available.  A choice of one or two designer frames rapidly became a flood of well-known and less well-known names. 

 

This of course led to prices unheard of in former years.  The advent of the Internet optical suppliers has eased the financial burden on the optical consumer as you who are reading this will readily appreciate. 

 

 

Tags: cheap glasses, Glasses, history of online glasses, online glasses, spectacles

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Glasses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.