Lifestyle
University Daily Kansan / Thursday, April 13, 1989
9
Trends in EYEWEAR 1989
Stories by Merceda Ares Photo by Steve Traynor
Glasses, contacts fill out wardrobe
You're trying to find the perfect outfit for that first day on the job, and you've been in the same store for the past three hours.
By now, the sales clerk is looking more than a little frazzled, and you're ready to buy the next thing she holds up.
"How about these?" she pleads They're only $100."
Finally, you agree on a pair, and you wear them out of the store — on your face.
Eyewear — no longer just for practical purposes — is expanding into a fashion accessory market, where glasses can add the finishing touch to any outfit. Corrective contacts can enhance a person's appearance, exports say.
Midwest trend
Elaine Blevins, color analyst for Creative Touch, 3600 Crestview Road, said coordinating eyeglasses because she was a current trend in the Midwest.
"It's been going on for years on the East and West coasts, especially in Hollywood "Blevis said." "You can get 1,000 different looks with glasses."
Janie Hunt, eyewear consultant for Darrel Smith, a Lawrence optometrist, said there were three women who were popular for different age groups.
John Lennon glasses, or glasses with round wire frames, are popular with college and high school students, while professional people she said, opt for a more preppy look with a long neck. Customers prefer frames with fancy temples and silver and gold on the sides.
Frames as jewelry
"The frames are so pretty, people look at them almost as a piece of jewelry," she said. "I know when I wear one, but I am just some time you had to wear."
She said frames come in a wide variety of colors.
"Glasses are a fashion accessory," she said. "I think color analysis has a lot to do with it. Some come in and say I'm a winter, what can you do for me?" I say. "Have I got frames for you."
"Red is very big even though it's bright," Hunt said. "Teal didn't sell very well. I think it because people it wouldn't go with very much."
Bea Brien, eyewear consultant for Stebkins, Hoss and Burlingame, 3111 W. Sixth St., said it was not unusual that more than one pair of glasses at a lounge.
She said fashion in glasses were going back to the 1940s and '50s, such as the cat-eyed look. Many people shop at flea markets for old frames and then bring them to the office to have their prescription made to
Opaque colored contacts can limit vision, study says
Some eye doctors do not recommend opaque colored contact lenses because they can distort or under certain circumstances.
In fact, Michael S. Insler, associate professor of ophthalmology at Louisiana State University, said 'that people who wear oqueapenis are about a percent of their side vision temporarily while wearing the contacts.
The problems occur when a person's pupils are not perfectly aligned with the clear center of the lenses; when the opaque, or colored, part of the lens covers part of the pupil, vision is restricted.
Insler, who teaches at the School of Medicine Eye Center in New Orleans, conducted a study two years ago to see if people who wore opaque contacts
He tested them with and without the contacts in their eyes. Nine people complained of blurred vision and poor vision while wearing the contacts.
"This affects persons at all times," Insler said. "It's particulary bad at night."
He said that at night, a person's pupils were more likely to enlarge to let in more light and that the clear center of the contact might not be large enough to accommodate this increase in pupil size.
"It's not a major concern."
Insler said. But, "We feel the manufacturers ought to warn patients of possible problems."
Another precautionary measure would be for eye doctors to make sure lenses were properly centered, he said.
Curtis Anderson, a Lawrence optometrist, said that although he didn't fit man oapue lenses, he hadn't problem with a problem with the ones he had.
"The fitting is pretty much the same as regular lenses," he said. "You have to be more careful to make sure the center is on the cornea because if it isn't, it interferes with their vision."
Arliss Stebins, of Stebins,
Hoss and Burlingame, 3111 W.
Sixth St. also said he did not
have lenses if they did not
fit properly.
Brenda Saile, an eyewear consultant assistant for Lawrence optometrist Darrel Smith, said her office would not sell opaque lenses if they didn't center properly. She also said many people wanted the lenses, not all could wear them because of improper fit.
"But you never know without trying them on," he said.
match. she said.
"A lot of people think color is on its way out, but I don't think so," Brien said.
Brenda Saile, an eyewear consultant assistant for Darrell Smith, said people liked the change that colored contacts could bring.
"They want something exciting, different," she said. "It's not what they wear all the time. We've got a few people who don't even need glasses but buy contacts to change their color."
Blevins, a color consultant, agreed that people liked to experiment with eye color.
"People will call me and say, 'Remember me,' I'm the one with the green eyes. How will aqua look on me?"
Colored contacts come in two different types — opaque and translucent.
Opaque is the only type of contact that can change dark eyes to another color. Saile said.
Oopaque lenses have clear centers that fit over the pupil. The outer edges of the contact are colored oopaque dots.
Oopaque means that the lens is not transparent
Translucent-colored contacts have a see-through shade over the entire lens and are used to enhance eye color rather than change it.
Enhancing preferred
Arliss Stebbins of Stebbins, Hoss and Burlingame, said the trend in the Midwest is moving away from drassing footwear for wearer and moving toward enhancing it.
Andrea McKee, Wichita junior,
said she tried aqua translucent
contacts to change the color of her
hazel eyes to green.
"They looked fake," she said. "I got tired of them. I'm kind of glad I lost them."
But translucent lenses are not usually an option for color change in dark-eyed people.
Debra Auld is the exception to that rule.
Auld. Wakefield freshman, wears amber translucent-colored contacts to enhance her brown eyes.
"I tried on a green but it made my eyes an ugly army green color." Auld said "The orange contact really brought them out and made them a brown. You wouldn't be able to tell I would touch their unless I told you."