Sandra 085 - 087

The arrival of the large frames had one down side, if you prefer to call it that way. High index lenses only arrived in the late 1980's when the large frames were about to make way for two decades of rather dull retro frames. As a result, the lenses in the large frames of the 1970's and 1980's were quite thick. The glasses shown here by Sandra are only minus five but the thickness at the edges is a full centimeter. This could be neatly hidden by solid frames that curved back towards solid arms and in fact, many frames were designed with this solution in mind. However, the arrival of large rimless frames created a problem. Not every lady liked the idea of being seen behind a veritable wall of glass. Opticians soon came up with a nice - albeit expensive - solution. Here Sandra is showing us how the sides of the lenses were "split" in two, giving the viewer the impression of a nice decoration rather than a handicap. This was the easy variant but there was a glamorous - and even more expensive - alternative in which the side of the lenses was transformed into a myriad of small facets. These lenses really looked like jewelry and just after one such a glorious sighting in the early 1980's, I decided that such a pair of ladies glasses should be called her Crystal Veil....