Sunglasses are a crucial piece of any summer outfit, a style item, but during these hot sunny months they also function as an important shield to protect our eyes from the rays of the sun. In this luminous warfare, polarized sunglasses are a top accessory, but have you ever thought of where they came from? What do polarized lenses actually mean?
Polarized sunglasses were first introduced in 1936 by Edwin H. Land, founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He, together with the brand Ray Ban, designed the aviator-style sunglasses especially with war pilots in mind, as a part of their uniform. Sunglasses were given a shape to equip the pilot with optimal shade from the sun, important since all the previous designs let the sunlight in when pilots looked down at the instrument panel. In 1937 – a year after the initial introduction – the polarized Ray Ban aviators became available for the public as well.
The Polaroid filter makes the sunglasses an effective shield against harmful rays and light glare. The light passes through the lens in a single plane eliminating the rays of glare from the light rays. Common sunglasses lets light pass through in many planes and can’t minimize the glare effect on the eye. The polarization can be applied to the lens in three different ways. It is cheapest to have a film of polarized filtering applied to the outer coating of the lens. The filter can also be put between the layers of the lens. The newest and consequently most expensive way is to combine the filter with the lens material: a result achieved by adding filter to lens while this is still in liquid form, thus generating the highest visual quality.
The protection from the sun has been the inspiration of many fashionable items through time. Women in ancient times hid seductively behind a fan or a dipped parasol, modern women – and men – discovered the chic allure in wearing sunglasses also off the utility in war, at the beach.
