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Waiting Room Reads

Alicia Isenberg Hoglund

Despite a roomful of educational pamphlets, posters, and newsletters, do most of your patients instead pick up the latest copy of a lifestyle or cooking magazine while in the waiting area? If so, you’re in luck.

A slew of new “coffee table” books with a focus on eyewear have hit the market, blending the fun of fashion with the history of vision care to create an entertaining and educational read. Curious minds can get a lesson about the evolution of eyewear while your fashion-conscious patients can explore the trends that span back to the birth of eyewear.

Here we highlight some of the available books—the latest additions as well as old favorites—poised to help you position eyewear as not only a medical device for everyday use, but a must-have accessory as well.

Eyewear books are cropping up in waiting rooms everywhere. Image courtesy of TASCHEN

EYEWEAR A VISUAL HISTORY

By Moss Lipow

New York City-based eyewear designer and collector Moss Lipow provides a detailed account of the history of eyewear and its progression from a thing of function to one of a multi-billion dollar industry where medical necessity rivals fashionable accessory. Lipow scoured eBay, flea markets, and similar venues to gather an extensive collection of classic and outrageous examples, from prehistoric whalebone eye guards used by Eskimos to today’s frames, as well as a number of styles from Lipow’s own collections. The book features more than 1,000 images covering almost 500 years of eyewear design.

FASHIONS IN EYEWEAR—FROM THE 14TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY

By Richard Corson; introduced and updated by Caroline Cox

This enlarged and updated Richard Corson classic houses a comprehensive history of the fashions in eyewear dating back to the 1300s. A must-have for fashion and theater buffs, the book covers the basics of eyewear as well as theater glasses, monocles, and more. The revamped edition includes an introduction by Caroline Cox, a fashion and history authority and personality.

SPECS APPEAL:

EXTRAVAGANT 1950s & 1960s EYEWEAR By Leslie Pina, Donald-Brian Johnson Pina and Johnson construct a colorful and outrageous narrative of the iconic 1950s and 1960s fashion by way of cat-eye styles, polka dots, and rose-colored glasses. With more than 450 photos and vintage ads, the reader is taken back in time to the ladylike and fashion-forward eyewear that has been reinvented and remolded time and again to add a touch of old-school glamour to today’s modern styling. Frames from the 1950s and 1960s are immortalized in “Specs Appeal.” Image courtesy of Schiffer Publishing

Corson features illustrations of iconic eyewear. Seen here (top to bottom), Dior, Linda Farrow for Yoko Ono, and Cutler and Gross eyewear from the 1970s. Image courtesy of Peter Owen Publishers

COLLECTIBLE EYEGLASSES

By Frederique Crestin-Billet

A great read for eyewear enthusiasts and everyday fashionistas, this work takes readers on a historic journey, highlighting the classic, most notable, and collectible eyewear throughout the ages. Covering sports goggles to opera glasses, and with sections like antiques, classics, sunglasses, special edition, and contemporary designs to everyday eyewear, the book covers the bases of the most recognized and collectible eyewear fashions to date. EB

Kid Corner

A new angle in customer care, Live Eyewear has released a new waiting room children’s book, “Now I Can See!” Written by Live Eyewear president Kieran Hardy, the book is designed to keep young patients entertained when waiting to see the doctor, while at the same time educating children about the benefits of corrective eyewear. Kids learn the ropes about prescription eyewear through a fun and informative story centered around the book’s main character, Blandon Bear. The book is the first in the Blandon Bear Adventures series that will focus on a variety of eyewear-related topics for kids. Live Eyewear is offering the book free of charge to its customers while supplies last. To reserve a copy, contact Live Eyewear’s customer service team at 800-834-2563.

A collector’s bible, Crestin-Billet covers the history of eyewear from basics to the extravagant in “Collectible Eyeglasses.” Image courtesy of Rizzoli New York