Word: eyewear
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Oliver Peoples has been in the eyeglasses business on and off -- mostly off -- for the better part of this century. Suddenly he is the hottest thing in eyewear. He is also dead...
...optical shop in Los Angeles with three partners. No one had any fixed idea about what to stock or what to call the store. Then Leight's brother Dennis got a call from a New York City antiques dealer, inquiring whether the group would be interested in some vintage eyewear. The samples he forwarded were promising: 12-karat gold-filled frames, at least 50 years old and decorated, as Dennis recalls, "with beautiful markings, beautiful filigree...
...christened and so stocked, the Oliver Peoples shop opened on a tony patch of Sunset Boulevard, and has rapidly become the hippest name in eyewear. Selling a combination of Peoples antiques (at an average of $200 a pop), timely improvisations on his vintage designs ($90 to $225) and original concoctions of their own (all manufactured by Optec Japan), the Peoples people are scoring an eye-popping success. They have sold some 110,000 frames through a wholesale operation and opened accounts in chichi retail outlets from Europe to Japan to Australia. Says Richard Morgenthal, president of New York City...
Whether new or vintage, all Peoples eyewear shares a kind of avant-garde antiquarianism. These are the specs Benjamin Franklin would have worn if he'd been into performance art instead of kite flying. Two Peoples best sellers: frames that combine tortoiseshell eye pieces and temples with a wire bridge (Nick Nolte sports a pair in the recent New York Stories); and clip-on sunglasses, the sort that '30s movie stars would attach to their specs to check out a polo match over at Will Rogers' place...
...developed by the nonprofit American National Standards Institute. Some glasses now carry tags saying MEETS ANSI STANDARDS. But critics charge the labels are inadequate. ANSI divides sunglasses into three categories: fashion spectacles that shield eyes from only 70% of UV-B and less than 60% of UV-A; everyday eyewear that screens out 95% of UV-B and between 60% and 92% of UV-A; and special-purpose glasses that absorb almost 99% of ultraviolet rays...