Eyeglasses From 1900-2000

The 20th century was a transition period in the world of vintage frames. During the 19th century antique eyeglass frames came in the colors of black and white. Well, not quite black and white, more like gold and silver, but those 2 colors were so standard in vintage mens glasses and vintage womens glasses frames that they were boring as black and white. During the mid 1900's eyeglasses entered a new era of style, color, and options! While in the early decades of the 20th century eyeglasses such as 1920 eyeglasses were still largely gold and silver, there started a trend of combining some color to gold and silver vintage frames. This came about in the manner of the addition of brown, black or tortoise zyl or celluloid coatings to windsor 1910's and 1920's antique frames. While this may seem minor, it paved the way for the revolution of color later in the 1950 and 1960's glasses frames. While vintage mens frames tended to stick with conservative colors such as black and tortoise, womens vintage glasses frames did no such thing, rather they embraced color with vigor and enthusiasm. Bright Red, Light Pink and Baby Blue were standard and common, colors so bold they are barely worn today. As with everything else the pendolum swings the other way and vintage frames retreated to more standard and conformist colors with 1970s 1980's and mainly 1990's eyeglasses and things were no longer the same. The Vintage Optical Shop brings you a large selection in all styles and colors of vintage frames from all decades of this trans-formative century.