Designer shades for athletes and aviators.

In addition to the cinema, sport became one more affordable entertainment of the 1930s, the obsession that began in the twenties. Fashion for the sport, in turn, positively affected the popularity of shades. In the U.S. market first designer shades appeared in 1929, when the entrepreneur Sam Forster has adjusted its mass production. He was selling a shades in a department store "Woolworth" in Atlanta, and sunglasses were very popular with holidaymakers on the beach. Thus was born the first brand of shades - Foster Grant. In 1930 appeared the first shades designed for various kinds of outdoor activities.

In terms of design shades thirties can be considered iconic because it is at that time was born model, which goes out of fashion for decades. It must be, dear readers have already guessed that this is a model Aviator c gray-green lenses "drops" which first appeared under the name Ray-Ban. These shades were not created for the sake of fashion. Their shape was dictated solely anatomy of the human person. Aviator sunglasses provides maximum visibility and with all this going on miss a minimum of the scattered light. It was a shape arising from the function, the so-called aesthetic desirability, free from the dictates of fashion. Shades were fitted with sun lenses, lens created by Umbral firm Schott, serial production was launched by Bausch & Lomb - manufacturer of shades Ray-Ban - back in 1930. Immediately after the war, the company Carl Zeiss introduced to the market their own shades with lenses Umbral. Behind her followed by other firms seeking to win a share of the rapidly growing market of shades.

But back to the model Aviator. World famous, this model of shades was soon after the Second World War, General U.S. Army Douglas MacArthur (Douglas MacArthur) was photographed in it on the coast of the Philippines. Photographers took some of his shots, and then flown the whole world. Incidentally, during the Second World War, sunglasses brand Ray-Ban, the obligatory equipment of the U.S. Army pilots, and were allowed to wear in the French army, which used no less popular.

During the Second World War, the development of new forms of glasses for obvious reasons, came to naught. In Germany, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht used the nickel-plated glasses with big round light openings and curved temples sample of the First World. They were much more comfortable for shooting out of the trench than in those that appeared in the 1930s. But that's another story ...