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Vintage Sunglasses

CharlieH.

One Too Many
Messages
1,169
Location
It used to be Detroit....
You could get ones like Claude Rains':

movie275.jpg


Gad, I love that picture....
 

carebear

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,220
Location
Anchorage, AK
About as "vintage" as popped up when I did it were aviators and Wayfarers, both black and tortoise shell. Basically 40's and 50's, nothing earlier.

I'm thinking any full wire frame with roundish lenses (green or brown?) would probably not be too inaccurate.
 

Mike in Seattle

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,027
Location
Renton (Seattle), WA
As Tomasso mentioned above, most of the vintage (30's-40's) sunglasses I've seen are tortoise and usually with green lenses, and the Ray-Ban Aviator style were pretty popular as well.
 

matei

One Too Many
Messages
1,022
Location
England
The ones that Johnny Depp wears often in public look pretty cool, and appear to be vintage as well.

They're similar to the ones Bogart wears in "The Big Sleep" (when he enters the bookshop).

I'd like to find a pair of those.
 

funneman

Practically Family
Messages
851
Location
South Florida
CharlieH. said:
You could get ones like Claude Rains':

movie275.jpg


Gad, I love that picture....


This is a little off topic...but look at this picture for a minute. Talk about a great actor. Look at how he manages to convey rage and arrogance with his face completly hidden and his eye obscured. I'd like to see Tom Cruise do that!
 

herringbonekid

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,016
Location
East Sussex, England
they were typically round in the 30s with frames of tortoiseshell, yellow, clear, blue, brown etc.
then they went off-round and more oblong as the 40s progressed (these are hard to find).
then into the classic James Dean shape of the 50s which looks pretty much like the shape mentioned above that Johnny Depp wears.
 

Daisy Buchanan

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,332
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BOSTON! LETS GO PATRIOTS!!!
I don't know too much about mens styles, but I was at a vintage shoppe the other day speaking with a gentleman who works there and is quite knowledeable. He just picked up a pair of shades and the box they came in was from the mid-30's. They looked exactly like aviators, except the lenses weren't as round. I think Ray Ban does make a pair of their aviators like this. They almost looked square, but they weren't, very hard to explain. They did have the bar across the top, it was gold not pink plastic like some of the aviators made today. Hope this is a little helpful.
 

Mr. Rover

One Too Many
Messages
1,875
Location
The Center of the Universe
My favorite look is the 20's-30's circular tortoise shell sunglasses. I love aviators but I can't pull them off for the life of me without looking like a traffic cop.
I believe Daniel Riser had a bunch of plastic deadstock sunglasses.
Lauren, do you still have the pictures from the first "Show us your suits" thread? I think he was wearing the glasses in his "televangelist" white suit.
 

Feraud

Bartender
Messages
17,190
Location
Hardlucksville, NY
Twitch said:
I wear blue-blockers in the shape of Jack Nicholson's Wayfarers.:cool:
Those are great! I bought the same exact pair of Wayfarer blue blocker sunglasses in the 80's. I loved those shades and wore 'em everywhere for years. One day while stepping off a NYC elevated train they slipped out of my pocket and fell in between the train and the platform! I rushed down the stairs to recover them only to find they had been crushed by a passing car. :(
 

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