FUL-VUE GLASSES
Ful Vue Glasses were invented by American Optical. The story goes that when automobiles started becoming popular in the early 1900’s there arose a new need the hadn’t been around before: the need to be able to have clear vision when looking to the sides while driving. With oval or vintage round glasses frames the temples generally met the frames midway of the lenses. When looking out of the side of the lenses this directly blocked ones line of vision.
Prior to the automobile this wasn’t so important, but with the need to look to the sides to drive safely this issue needed to be addressed. The answer came in the form of Ful-vue eyeglasses. The shape of Vintage frames was reimagined. What if you could connect the temples to the top of the frames, instead of the middle? This clears up the line of vision when looking to the side.
The only issue was that this new shape has the frames sitting slightly higher on the face, which causes the round or oval shape to be uncentered to the face. A few tweaks to the shape produced the P3 glasses shape which retains much of the shape of vintage glasses yet pushes and pulls in certain areas so that it all centers well on the face. Fulvue glasses / p3 eyeglasses were one of the most popular shapes of 1940s glasses.