Iris 068

Lovely Iris posing in giant Piave glasses from 1975 and giant hat from Napoli. It would have been easy to remove the reflection in the lenses but my choice was to keep it this way to have more of an authentic look. Anti-reflective coating was only beginning to emerge in the mid 1970's and nearly all photos of ladies in giant glasses showed these reflections.
The only down side of the giant Piave glasses was their lack of stability, especially when they were fitted with strong lenses. My girlfriend the art student had a prescription of minus six and the airy frame with its rather short arms did not produce enough counterweight for the thick, heavy lenses. She used the Piave glasses for a year and then it was time for a new pair that offered more stability. I was working in Switzerland at the time and our choice fell on a green pair from the very first collection of Christian Dior glasses. From then on, she switched between the Piave and Dior glasses, depending on her outfit of the day. The Piave glasses went on retirement in 1977, making way for an even larger pair of glasses. Shortly after divorcing her in 1989, I came across this red Piave pair at the famous "Waterlooplein" flea market in Amsterdam and bought it without bargaining. If my memory serves me correctly, the price was two guilders (less than one Euro). A nice thing about collecting glasses is that they are generally regarded useless to their new owner because of the individuality of the prescriptions and the PD as well.