A Fad From The 30′s: Luminous Glasses?
Bored during my one day off from work this week I found myself thumbing through my copy of Edward R. Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information when I happened upon this old advertisement from a 1938 Johnson & Smith Catalogue hocking “Luminous Glasses”. Apparently these gimmicky eyeglass frames were coated with a layer of luminescent paint which, if worn in a dark environment, would glow in unusual patterns.
Was this some sort of a fad in the late thirties? Did people spend an unusual amount of their time in dark alcoves and gothic recesses, generating the desperate need for glow-in-the-dark eyewear? Was this fad akin to wearing an onion in your belt, swallowing live goldfish, sporting conk hairstyles, or wearing Member’s Only jackets?
This fad must have stayed in the public consciousness long enough to allow the manufacturer time to expand their eyewear line to include “Window Spectacles” and “Spectacles & Nose” models, the latter making the wearer look like some sort of twisted neoprimitive medicine man running wild on an all night bender of illicit stimulants washed down with Red Bull & vodka.
Ya know, the more I look at this advertisement, the more it gives off an awfully powerful psychedelic vibe making it seem more at home in a Timothy Leary testimonial, a Tom Wolfe / William S. Burroughs novel, or a Victor Moscoso poster than in a 30′s novelty catalogue.
