History of Eyewear
/Framing the Eyes
Image provided by www.pexels.com and taken by Shane Aldendorff
Did you know that more than half of Canadian adults in 2016 wear eyeglasses for vision correction? Or that 74% of adults wear glasses for vision correction according to The Vision Council, me neither. As someone who wears glasses, I didn't know about it. People who wear glasses or contacts are people who have trouble seeing. But who invented it? Where did the business of eyewear start? How did it impact the lives of many who have difficulties with blurry vision in their day-to-day life?
The first spectacle were made and worn in the 13th century. But in truth, They’ve been around even before the 13th century. The first use of eyewear was not to help with visual impairments but to magnify and see small words, commonly used by ancient Romans. Who invented the glasses has always been a complex topic because nobody knows who created them. Some say it was Benjamin Franklin because he developed the bifocals that made glasses far-sighted or short-sighted. Some say Salvino D'Armate invented the first spectacle in the 13th century. Still, historians doubt Salvino D'Armate is the true inventor of glasses because of his fraudulent epitaph and his nonexistent name in the Armate family registry at the time. No one can honestly know who invented it, but it has been improved throughout centuries by multiple inventors and innovators who have proven its use to this very day.
Eyewear is not a medicine prescribed by a doctor but a tool, a commodity that helps the users with their vision. It gives the user visual corrections in their day-to-day lives. It's also a business; the eyewear industry has been around since the 13th century when the first convex glasses came to be. Ever since the creation of glasses, a lot of companies specifically for eyewear has started showing up. One of the biggest companies in the eyewear industry is Luxottica, and they began in 1961.
Image Provided by unsplash.com and taken by Josh Calabrese
The business in eyewear's total market size value is 147 billion USD in 2020. According to the report made by Grand View Research, the market size will increase to 278 billion USD in 2028. That's a hefty amount of money due to the success of eyewear because They will never run out of customers. It has become an item of necessity for people, especially for the adult population, because as they grow older, their vision can weaken. To add on, the increase in quality of the frames, glasses, contact lenses and other materials also contributed to the industry's success. They show no signs of stopping
As someone who wears glasses, I don't know what I would do if I couldn't see anything; this is how it impacted people's lives. Furthermore, blurry vision is inconvenient and can make life difficult. You can't see the letters and words nor see the faces of friends and families. Eyeglasses are one of humanity's best inventions; without them, people would be bumping into lampposts and walls. Some might find it inconvenient to wear them every day, but contact lenses exist and work like glasses. They will stay around for a very long time unless humanity makes a breakthrough to recovering our vision back to 20/20. For now, this is what we have.
More than anything, I don't know what kind of world we would live in if eyeglasses didn't exist. I don't think I'll be able to live without these bad boys. So I'm glad and grateful for such an invention to exist.
Thomas Arcilla
A 2nd professional writing student who loves video games and sushi. He writes a lot of novels but never finishes them. However, he promised to end them eventually, at least one of them.
