It is difficult to estimate the demand for the latest styles.

The idea of making spectacles as inconspicuous as possible has gone out.”Ī lot of phrases such as “harmony between lens shape and browline” were being bandied about here, but one middle-aged optician, who caught his daughter trying on a pair which makes the wearer appear to have a large new pair of eyebrows, seized them and said he’d be damned if he’d allow a child of his to be seen in such frames.īut then, as another optician observed philosophically, there were sometimes similar reactions from husbands when wives or daughters proposed to have a dress in the sack-style, or whatever the latest fashion was called. When asked to explain some of the latest styles one exhibitor said: “They are based on consultations with the West End fashion houses who know what people want to wear. Mr Schaeffler referred in a message to the congress to “the present proliferation of frame styles to which, at the moment, there still appears to be no end,” and he added that “while there may be those among us who think that there are now too many styles,” such a change in ten years was at least “reassuring evidence of the industry’s remarkable creative ability and its adaptability to changing circumstances.”Ī comparison with the dress designers is not far-fetched. What amazes the opticians is the steady stream of new styles each year, a contrast to ten years ago, when “hardly more than a dozen variations were available,” according to Mr WL Schaeffler, the chairman of the Association of Wholesale and Manufacturing Opticians. It is already accepted in the profession that patients no longer want what one optician called “discrete frames” but - particularly in the case of women - wish to get the pleasure from a new pair of glasses that they get from a new hat.

“Exotic” is the word the more conservative opticians used to describe the styles of the last few years, as if they regretted the passing of the old horn-rimmed, and “exotic” most of this year’s exhibits looked, with names like “Mischief,” shaped like lorgnettes, and good-looking girls to show them off, against a background of daffodils and the Southport boulevards.

Spectacle eyewear