Surfing on Fashion

Archive for May, 2009

Tom Cruise may have made aviators look good when he played the ace fighter pilot in the 1980s classic, “Top Gun”, but aviator sunglasses have been around for far longer than Mr. Mission Impossible. Cruise can jump up and down on a couch in anger at this, but it’s a matter of fact—real air force pilots have been wearing the classic aviator sunglasses since almost as long as airplanes have been around. They’re called aviators after all!

The classic pilot sunglasses first came about in the 1930s, when airplanes became a major part of the modern military of the United States. That is when pilots were still flying around in prop planes, but they were already getting the reputation of being renegades and daredevils, and they needed a special set of sunglasses to set them apart from your average soldier—your average man for that matter.

Aviators made it big time during World War II, when pilots needed high-performance eye wear for fighting over the skies of Europe and Asia. They came with impact-proof lenses, so that they could take a beating and not crack. And for good looks, they came with classic gold frames and dark lenses. Think of how handsome U.S. pilots must have been in their dress khakis, hair slicked back like Fonzi, and a pair of these beauts on their face!

The style that is traditionally associated with aviators, though, didn’t make its first real debut until the year 1958. Back then, their official military name was the Flight Goggle 58. That name, of course, doesn’t have much marketing potential, but they worked great. They protected the pilots’ eyes from the sun, provided crisp vision in case of dog fights or other important missions, and to top it off, were extremely comfortable on long flights.