This early Silhouette frame is an excellent example of the revolutionary changes in frame design around 1970. Thumb rules went overboard. All of a sudden it was no longer required that each frame should be made to please the average face. Within this new trend, Silhouette was the first brand with a real signature of their own. It is my belief that the new design styles were a reaction on the arrival of contact lenses in 1967 / 1968. Women with bad eyesight were no longer "condemned" to wear glasses. Designers zoomed in on the new situation. Silhouette made several frames with the striking X shape seen here. Not every woman would have the guts to walk the streets with an X between her eyes. Arguably Silhouette gave the sign "take it or leave it" to the crowds. And it worked. Glasses soon became a way of self expression. The X shape was embraced by some and rejected by many.
There is a parallel with the arrival of photography in 1839 and the changes in Fine Art that followed. Miniature painters were not worried about the new invention, still in its infancy. One quote from a painter to his client says it all. "Ah non Madame, photography can't flatter". But within a decade or so, miniature painting had disappeared. It was much cheaper and faster to have your portrait taken in a photo studio. Portrait painters became aware that their own art should change in order to survive. And this eventually led to new trends like impressionism. Remove something and add something else. Photography was unable to do that. And 130 years later designers of prescription glasses chose the same response to the arrival of contact lenses.
It was interesting to see the reactions of my early models on the X shaped Silhouette glasses. Many rejected them but some embraced them. And it has always remained this way. Only Tineke (019), Karen (198), Astrid (573), Nefeli (138), Nicci (101) and Chanel posed in these spectacular Silhouette glasses. And then there was Nerissa....
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