Sunglasses at night?
By Amy Spiezio

Since issue No. 1, Eyecare Business has highlighted business strategies that work for retailers making their way in the demanding frame market and has showcased the latest on the style horizon. In honor of our 20th anniversary, Buyer's Forum will stroll down memory lane each month of 2006 and share tips that have worked in the past and continue to serve as solid business and style advice to dispensers. This month, we focus on sunwear.

CELEBRITY SUPPORT: Sure it's important to stress the versatility of sunwear as a fashion and health device, but Corey Hart may have gone a step too far
in 1986 when he promoted evening sunwear use with his hit, "Sunglasses at Night." Bausch & Lomb, however, jumped ahead of the curve by taking advantage of the
untapped publicity opportunity.

In Eyecare Business' first issue, a Newsmakers item noted that Bausch & Lomb provided Ray-Ban Wayfarers for 600 Corey Hart fans who were guests of Rochester radio station WPXY, host of one of his concerts. Hart's sunglass-loving song created hundreds of thousands of dollars in free exposure for the sunglass market, according to Norman D. Salik, then director of marketing services for Bausch & Lomb.

SHINE ON: Fashion truly is cyclical. Ten years ago, in 1996, EB's frame editors focused on metallics in the feature "Shine of the Times." On the hot list were "body-conscious streamlined silhouettes and shiny, metallic, and even pearlized finishes." In this issue, our feature "Shimmer and Shine" shows metals that have gone a step further with sleeker, warmer, and more colorful finishes.

While in 1996, metal symbolized a technical revolution and our culture's movement into a new millennium, this year's metal finishes aren't necessarily of a brave new world, but that of a world that has warmed up cool metals with colors, texture treatments, jewels, and face-flattering shapes. It makes one wonder where metal styles will be in 2016.