
Fortunately not. Whilst function may originally dictate the form, this becomes the fashion and from there the designers seem keen to push things to extremes, especially the Italians. Thank goodness for the Italians! Certainly there are an abundance of sleek visor-styled lenses that protect the wearer from glare and dust whilst smoothing the airflow over the eyes. But these are often so dull. The best designs make a statement that, despite (or perhaps because of) their weirdness, represent an era. These are to me the most interesting.
At the start of fast mechanised transport motorists, motorcyclists and aviators were certainly in need of eye protection. Tour de France cyclists' goggles resembled these in style. Of course when riding a bike things tend to fog up a bit. How long would it be before specialist eye wear was designed for this activity?
I guess it was somewhere in the early 80s that I first saw a pair of cycling specific sunnies — on the eyes, actually on the face, of Phil Anderson. At first glance these looked quite bizarre. But there was no discouraging a teenager mad keen to emulate Anderson. The wide field of view, the sweat band across the top, the large single lens, and the fact that Skippy himself was wearing a pair, all made these highly desirable. As far as I know, from these Oakleys springs the weird world of cycling specific sunnies.



And then nothing much happened for nearly 10 years. Various companies experimented with snap-in lenses, including many from Taiwan, but none was a notable or particularly distinctive design.
Maybe the last couple of years have seen the introduction of the next classic: the Oakley Jawbone. They are competing against Oakley's other popular design, the Radar which I feel lacks any innovative features over and above those offered by the myriad of other blade-style lenses. They just aren't wacky enough to make an impression.
The Jawbones also feature interchangeable lenses, but more importantly, the bizarre frame form with multiple components whose colours may be mismatched as garishly as desired might be just what is needed to define the next classic. Peripheral visibility is not nearly as good as the old Stingers. The lens quality is great though and they hug the face to keep out dust and debris. Slots around the side of some lens models allow for a little ventilation in steamy conditions, hopefully to keep the fog at bay. Will these define the era?
