Plastic is the real thing for frames

Whether it’s used to cre­ate the entire frame or in com­bi­na­tion with oth­er mate­ri­als like tita­ni­um, plas­tic is the go-to mate­r­i­al for this season’s eye­wear design­ers.

Neal Gri­ma­son, of lead­ing UK dis­trib­u­tor Con­ti­nen­tal Eye­wear, says: “Plas­tic is def­i­nite­ly at the fore­front of eye­wear design, though com­bi­na­tion frames are increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar, such as those fea­tur­ing a plas­tic hood and met­al low­er rim.”

The beau­ty of plas­tic frames is that they allow eye­wear design­ers to cre­ate frames in the widest choice of colours, or lay­ers of colours called lam­i­nates.

There are many types of plas­tic mate­ri­als avail­able, from nylon-based plas­tics that are hypoal­ler­genic, to mate­ri­als for sports eye­wear, such as gril­amid, that are extreme­ly robust, flex­i­ble and heat-resis­tant.

Many eye­wear man­u­fac­tur­ers have patent­ed mate­ri­als to be used only in their designs. For exam­ple, Aus­tri­an eye­wear man­u­fac­tur­er Sil­hou­ette, famed for its high-end rim­less frames that are 80 per cent hand­craft­ed, utilis­es a pro­pri­etary mem­o­ry-shape mate­r­i­al called SPX (Sil­hou­ette Polyamide X) that lends its frames their renowned flex­i­bil­i­ty, com­fort and elas­tic­i­ty.

What design­ers love most about work­ing with plas­tic is that it gives them greater free­dom of cre­ativ­i­ty

What design­ers love most about work­ing with plas­tic, how­ev­er, is that it gives them greater free­dom of cre­ativ­i­ty. It was pre­cise­ly this which led to the recent launch of two new col­lec­tions, made entire­ly from acrylic, by eye­wear pur­vey­or to the stars Kirk Orig­i­nals.

Kirk’s Beam frames and Sun­beam sun­glass­es are hand-made in France from start to fin­ish, and the acrylic is pol­ished so the frames shine like glass.

Design­er Jason Kirk says: “Beam and Sun­beam fea­ture a spe­cial­ly devel­oped acrylic that has enough flex­i­bil­i­ty to glaze with pre­scrip­tion lens­es. Acrylic is incred­i­bly light to wear so that gives the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wear large chunky frames with­out exces­sive weight, a par­tic­u­lar advan­tage if you have a strong pre­scrip­tion. Anoth­er fan­tas­tic ben­e­fit of acrylic is that we have a palate of colours that is not nor­mal­ly found in eye­wear.”

What­ev­er frame mate­r­i­al you choose, be sure to ask your optician’s advice about com­fort and dura­bil­i­ty; they often know a lit­tle about style too.

DRIVING

Intelligent lenses for motorists

Inno­v­a­tive glass­es capa­ble of sens­ing and react­ing to chang­ing light con­di­tions can make dri­ving more com­fort­able – and safer.

Named Lens Prod­uct of the Year at the 2011 Opti­cian mag­a­zine awards, Dri­vewear is an intel­li­gent (adap­tive) pre­scrip­tion polarised pho­tochromic sun­glass­es lens for dri­vers that adjusts to light and cuts glare behind the car wind­screen. Unique­ly, Dri­vewear lens­es react to both UV and vis­i­ble light.

In low day­light con­di­tions, Dri­vewear lens­es have a high con­trast olive-green colour to max­imise use­ful light infor­ma­tion reach­ing the eye. In aver­age sun­light con­di­tions, the lens­es turn a cop­per colour to remove excess light and pro­vide good traf­fic sig­nal recog­ni­tion, high­light­ing the reds and greens. In bright sun­shine, the lens­es reach a deep-brown to max­imise fil­tra­tion of excess light.

What­ev­er brand you choose, an anti-reflec­tive lens coat­ing is rec­om­mend­ed for night dri­ving. Unlike sun­glass­es or self-dark­en­ing lens­es, these actu­al­ly trans­mit more light – about 8 per cent more.