Sunglasses are suddenly high-tech

They are made with the thinnest optical glass lenses in the world, which also contain a secret combination of rare earth elements to provide extreme levels of contrast and clarity, on top of being polarised, anti-glare, resistant to grease, water and infra-red light heating. And the hypoallergenic, celluloid frame has been polished over days using various kinds of wood chips and then hand-assembled. They are, of course, sunglasses. But these, the first from the Italian luxury goods company Loro Piana, carry a price tag of more than Dh5,000. "The problem in explaining why, is getting across the level of technology," says the company's co-managing director Sergio Loro Piana, also a keen pilot. "You can't set up all the machines to show how they are made. And without them, or without trying the sunglasses, they just look like another ordinary pair. But as vicuña [a wool-producing relative of the llama in the Andes] is to knitwear, so these are to sunglasses." Piana still expects demand to be strong for the model when it is launched this summer because the sunglasses market is evolving. If the cheap and almost disposable was once deemed acceptable, now increased awareness of both healthy vision and climate change, as well as growing technological literacy and more active lifestyles, are driving consumers to see sunglasses as performance tools as much as fashion statements. They are consequently building wardrobes of sunglasses for lifestyle more than style, with different pairs for driving, golf, water-sports, cycling, skiing or even just the specific environment in which they spend most of their time. Certainly, if the more advanced sunglasses are starting to look like serious design statements, that is because they are: with the latest designs, aerodynamics, fit and comfort, the strength-to-lightness ratio, anti-fogging coatings, venting, lens properties, and protection against flying debris even to ballistic standards are all among possible characteristics, leading to an aesthetic that is more tomorrow's world than yesteryear vintage. "The more special attributes that are built into a pair, the less flexibility there is to work with the aesthetics," explains Jamie Oman, the vice president of research and development at Oakley, whose recent Elite collection, for example, included the first sunglasses with frames made from pure carbon fibre, making them super-light but stronger than steel. "But for designer and, increasingly, consumer alike, performance isn't negotiable," he said. "For someone to have five or six pairs, each defined by function, is not uncommon now." Small wonder then that, without many shoppers realising it, the sunglasses industry has become frantic with research and development, with a new frame taking up to one year of lab work, lenses anything up to three years, but with any new idea filtering down into the mainstream within five years, according to Pierre Burgelin, international sales director for the French brand Julbo. Among its latest advances are those that allow two types of plastic to be injected through the same mould, allowing variable flexibility, systems that allow personalisation of the position of the bridge and temples for a much better fit, and use of the latest NXT lens technology. This combines the supreme clarity of optical glass with the lightness of more common polycarbonate lenses, as well as allowing a polychromatic feature - which reacts to the amount of light - to be embedded in a lens rather than coated on it, where it is vulnerable to scratching. "That's a material borrowed from the US military, which developed it for helicopter cockpits," says Burgelin. "But the pace of widespread adoption of new ideas means we have to keep looking and keep pushing R&D all the time to stay ahead, especially with the market now changing. Most of the sunglasses industry is still based on fashion - you buy by brand or style and just want to look cool. But increasingly it is about functionality, about investing in the right technology for the right benefit." Of course, according to the eyewear designer and retailer Jason Kirk, there is the potential for sunglasses brands to dazzle shoppers with science. Oakley, for example, while widely respected as an innovator, talks of its "plutonite" lenses, "iridium" coatings and "O Matter" frame material, as though it were forging new elements. "And it's long been a bone of contention when some brands put that sticker on their glasses promising '100 per cent protection against UV light'," he says. "If that were true it would effectively mean you couldn't see through the lens at all. But customers are taking a much more informed approach to buying sunglasses now. It is still a very brand-led market, but the more manufacturers make a show of their technology, as they are, the less important brand will become." From / The National