Sonia 045

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure about the age of the Essel glasses. Until 1967, all frames were small and compact. The love summer of 1967 and flower power changed everything in fashion and this soon had its influence on frame design as well. The first girl at school who arrived in larger glasses was called Iris and I thought she looked fantastic in them. We were the only troubadours at school and her stage act made a deep impression on me. Iris was born with only one hand but she was able to use the incomplete arm for strumming her guitar with a pick that was fixed with a piece of rope around her tapered lower arm. Iris was an interpreter of songs and she was impressed by the songs I had written. She introduced me into the emerging folk circuit of Amsterdam and the ball started rolling. But let's talk glasses.... In retrospect, it took six or seven years before large frames had become the norm. The avant garde and some young people who could afford it went for the larger frames in the late 1960's but even in 1972 there was much debate about the merits of large glasses. The Essel glasses shown here by Sonia still have elements of the compact fashion of the mid 1960's but the material is closer to the flamed brown frames that appeared shortly after 1970. Another factor is that the Essel glasses are bifocals with a reading add of +2.00, indicating that their first owner was a lady in her early fifties. Generally speaking, the older generation needed more time to go along with the latest trends in fashion. So eventually, the age of the Essel glasses depends on whether the lady in question was a trendsetter or a conservative follower. One thing is for sure: Sonia clearly enjoyed her acquaintance with the Essel bifocals, so let's leave it at that.