Mirjam 083

Throughout the 1970's and especially the 1980's, Silhouette from Austria was one of the top brands for glasses. In my opinion, they were in the same league as Christian Dior. The pair shown here by Mirjam was kindly given to me by a lady who always hated her glasses. Surprisingly, she had a fine collection of old glasses and she gave them all to me after I made her acquaintance in 1996. They were of no use to her anymore after a couple of increases in her prescription. Fashion had changed as well. The large frames disappeared from the streets in 1989, making way for small retro glasses. The kind donation spanned a period of nearly 30 years and we managed to reconstruct her glasses history with the help of old pictures. Remarkably, these Silhouette glasses were only used for about a year and a half. The frame was fairly popular in the late 1980's but the lady told me that she never really liked the nose bridge. The glasses are characteristic for the final years of the glorious era of the large frames.