V: Varifocal
Often known as progressives, varifocal lenses offer a gradient of correction power across their surface in order to provide clear vision for various viewing requirements. These properties mean the lenses are widely used as a solution to presbyopia, which is common in people more than 40 years old, and can offer highly specialised vision solutions.
While a British patent was granted to Owen Aves in 1907
for a varifocal style lens that was never made available commercially, the invention of modern varifocal designs are generally attributed to engineer Bernard Maitenaz for French company Societe des Lunetiers, which eventually became Essilor, in 1959.
W: Wood
Eye glasses are widely held to have originated in Northern Italy in the late 13th century and, at that time, consisted of glass-blown lenses inserted into wooden frames; meaning wood has been an eyewear construction material from the very start. Fast forward several centuries to the mid-1990s and companies like Gold & Wood were combining wood with precious materials for the luxury eyewear market. Since then wood has only become more common as an element in mixed material frames and is increasingly used by itself too.
Pioneer German designer Andreas Licht began to experiment with ideas to make frames from 100% wood around the year 2000 and brought his Herrlicht collection to market in 2004. Today, most companies operating in
this area stress their environmental credentials by only using renewable or reclaimed wood sources.
X: X-ray specs
The X-ray was discovered by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895 and, ever since, the prospect of glasses utilising the technology has tantalised writers of science fiction and their readers. Such mobility of the technology has never been realised although the prospect of smart glasses achieving some kind of similar effect via other means in the future
is not as outlandish as it once was. For instance, using custom built wireless network transmitters researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been able to create a rough image of a person standing on the other side of a wall.
In lieu of the real deal though, there has been a long standing jokey alternative that relies on optical illusion rather than electromagnetic radiation and is still available commercially today. X-ray specs originated in America with the first patent relating to them filed in 1906, a mere 11 years after the discovery of X-rays. X-ray specs consist of an oversized pair of frames with two layers of cardboard in place of a lens. The cardboard has a small hole with a diffraction lens (a feather in early versions) that causes the wearer to receive two slightly offset images; giving a suggestion of X-ray vision.