THAT “LOP-SIDED” LOOK

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 November 1933, Page 10

THAT “LOP-SIDED” LOOK

LATEST STYLES IN SPECTACLES LONDON, September 20. How many of us are aware that our faces, a ! s likely as not, are “lop-sided —that one eye, probably the right, is farther from the nose, or higher than its mate, or, if neither of these peculiarities exists, then it is almost a certainty that our ears do not quite “match”? Yet it is so. Opticians, who assure us that if glasses had never been invented most of us would be forced into retirement at 45, now assert that more than halt the population of this country have faces in which the right side is bigger than the left. They discovered it themselves not so long ago, and to allow for all .these facial irregularities they are now making glasses Ippsided. The modern optician designs the shap of spectacles to “blend” with the curve of the face. The top edge of the lens must follow the curve of the “eyebrow line”; one edge hugs the side of the nose and the lower edge fits into the cheek. Indeed, the modern optician, we are told, “is not pleased unless his clients look as though they had been born wearingglasses.” We remember those early glasses which clipped over the wearer’s nostrils so tightly as almost to interfere with the breathing. Their day has gone, other eye-wear styles are disappearing, and now, by all accounts, the cult of the “horn rims”—introduced into this country from America just after the war —is on the wane. In their stead are coming spectacles with coloured frames. One frame is of multi-coloured metal, another has the appearance of highly polished ebony. The idea is that your spectacle frame should match the colour of your clothes. Dozens of colour variations for spectacle frames, mostly intended for dress wear, are to be seen at the Optical Trade Exhibition which is being held in Dorland Hall, Regent-street, S.W. 1. The exhibition is the largest of its kind ever organised in this country. Th® exhibits embrace all the latest ophthalmic optical products, instruments, equipment, frames, lenses, and accessories. They are displayed on two floors, and cover over 7,000 square feet of space. Many ingenious instruments used in treating squint are exhibited. In this connection one piece of apparatus just invented, after years of research, by Mr. A. E. Turville, a British xepert, deserves mention. It is a miniature “movie” show which enables a patient to see the pictures in stereoscopic relief.

While watching "the stereoscopic movie squinting eyes are actually being persuaded to work in harmony. The inventor has thus succeeded in making squint treatment a pleasant affair for the patient. Another exhibit that attracts attention is the new “safety glass” spectacle. It is now possible to obtain a lens which can be shot at from point blank range without splintering, yet whose optical qualities are little inferior to the finest lenses of ordinary glass.