“US” - Our Eyewear Journey through the last 100 yrs.
As your stylist opticians for the last 10 yrs at limegrove you trusted my curation at our eyewear emporium . We embraced your personal style whilst letting you see how eyewear can transform you from one decade to the next and one personality to the next . Some of the iconic styles still relevant today in many of the independent eyewear brands in our store. A pair of glasses can make you into whoever you’d like to be. As we are forever evolving and developing our personal style . So maybe yesterday you were Marilyn Monroe , Today you are Grace Jones , who knows what tomorrow and the future will bring. Maybe, just maybe you will Dare to be a Bajan Girl in Peoples From Barbados glasses.
1920s Eyewear
Eye Q Peoples - Talal in LGR (italy)
The distinctive characteristics of the eyewear in this decade was small round or oval shaped with an intro of the temples and there was no style differentiation in sexes . However, the biggest change was sunglasses being worn as fashion, as beach going prior was considered mundane & not fashionable .
Horn rimmed was the chosen material with round metal frames to add more style and heavier thicker looks.
The fashion . The events
The roarin 20s , Golden 20s , annees folles .
The Jazz era of flapper dancers , speakeasies, rum runners and bath tub gin. From gangsters to gaiety the celebration and great spirit emerging from the world war 1 . Saw a liberation in fashion a distinctive cultural artistic economic progression. Art Deco , film , automobiles , aviation all saw innovation and invention.
Women finally winning the rights to vote in August 1920. The face of fashion began to change with leading women in fashion like Marlene Dietrich , Coco Chanel & Josephine Baker. Women felt a sense of freedom with shorter dresses, throwing their corsets for more loose fitting clothing . Or like Coco Chanel and Marlene Baker more tailored and even androgynous looks.
Me in GLCO tortoiseshell with side shields . ( In 1920s Real tortoiseshell would be used and was not completely banned until the 1970s). Replaced by acetate as plastics developed over the years.
1950s Eyewear
I know we skipped the Great Depression of the 1930s & the wars of the 1940s... we’re being optimistic remember ?
Cat eyes . Cat eyes . Cat eyes . Finally a new shape emerged that was more feminine lifting the cheek bones and in general a more SPEXY look. The frame materials being acetates and most cat eyes would have had embellished details in the brow-line .
Marilyn “men aren’t attentive to girls who wear glasses”. (Film - How to marry a millionaire ) Answer “you look better with them on, mysterious & distinctive” .
This film & Marilyn made wearing glasses fashion in 1950s . Everyone wore glasses men and women and perhaps the most iconic gentleman of the 1950s being Malcolm X . 
Malcolm X the articulate & charismatic revolutionary. His style subversive , meticulous & exquisite. Confident lean & sharp. He wore frames by American Optical - Sirmont.
Browlines
The Malcolm X frame . Heavy Browlines was the trend thick heavy acetate brow with a gold filled chassis combination. Gold filled typically 1/10 12k as oppose to gold plated like today. Some brows being interchangeable. In fact Malcolm X would change the color of the brow-line to match his suits. His frame has remained current over the decades , almost all manufacturing companies and brands mimicking this style . Later being known as the club master .
1960s eyewear
The Eye Q Family does 1960s - Alicia admits being a huge fan of Cat eye shapes. “It’s feminine & confident”. Sam her hubby & proprietor of Lemongrass & Pepenero wears SUPER frames with the double bar bridge and heavy brow line.
Audrey Hepburn - style ICON, actress & humanitarian pioneered the cat eye sunglasses in the film ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s “. Wearing Oliver Goldsmith tortoiseshell acetate cat eye with green tinted lenses.....to be cont...