Ray-Ban sunglasses celebrate 75 years of manufacturer this year.
The iconic brand was first patented in 1937 by Bausch & Lomb, after the U.S. Air Force requested a team of optical experts develop new eyewear to protect pilots from the sun’s glare at high altitudes, while still ensuring a clear field of vision. The product had the ability to block out glare or ‘Banish Rays’, the term from which the name Ray Ban was birthed.
The sunglasses were snapped up by the armed forces, but what is more telling is the speed at which stars from the silver screen in the 40s and 50s turned the aviator and then it’s younger sibling, the wayfarer, into a fashion icons… and their long lasting love affair with the brand.
Ray-Ban has been worn by everyone from Humphrey Bogart to James Dean, JFK to Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn to Bob Dylan (pictured) and Jack Nicholson. It went out of fashion for a while in the 70s then burst onto the scene again in the 80s when Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi busted out in their Wayfarers in The Blues Brothers.
Then, in 1982, Ray-Ban signed a USD$50,000 a year deal to ensure the sunglasses appeared in movies and on television. It was a brilliant coup which began a Wayfarer phenomenon starting with Tom Cruise kicking it off by donning his Wayfarers in Risky Business in 1983 then his Aviators in Top Gun in 1986. This deal guaranteed Ray-Ban would appear in more than 60 films and televisions series every year until 2007.
In 1999, Bausch & Lomb sold the brand to the Italian Luxottica Group for a reported USD$640 million.
Today, Ray Ban Aviators, Wayfarers and Clubmasters remain three of the most popular sunglasses in the world, and it seems as if every celebrity worthy of stage or screen wouldn’t be caught on the red carpet without them.
