Mother and daughter 046

Orange glasses were a hype during the mid and late 1960's. Opticians were rather strict in those days and their clients more inclined to follow the optician's advice than nowadays. Orange glasses were for blondes, brown or black glasses for brunettes.
Miriam is posing in one of the last orange glasses that appeared in the shops. In 1970, my late brother and I became involved in Irish music and we started a ballad group, covering most of the repertoire of the famous Dubliners. The other members of the group were three brothers. One of them was our lead singer and we always kept in touch. He sang a beautiful version of "Wild mountain thyme" during the funeral ceremony for my brother who passed away in November. But let's talk glasses.... His mother had mild myopia and she sometimes sported a pair of "Vela" glasses when I made her acquaintance in 1970. The glasses were made by Neostyle. In 1972, an advertisement appeared in the newspapers, showing duo portraits of models in empty frames. The portrait on the left showed the model in a sad pose, wearing cat eye frames or one of the small, solid glasses from the mid 1960's. The portrait on the right showed the model with a happy face, sporting brand new frames by Neostyle and Silhouette. The left row was called "out" and the right row was called "in". The text of this advertisement warned the public that small glasses were dangerous because of the limited field of view. Looking back, it was all really exaggerated - nobody ever mentioned the risk for car drivers during the retro era of the 1990's and 2000's although traffic had increased dramatically since the early 1970's and the retro glasses were even smaller than the cat eye glasses and the solid glasses of the mid 1960's. Anyway.
Esther's glasses are called "Conny" and judging by the frame shape and size, they were made around 1965. Their first owner had an asymmetrical prescription - very mild myopia in her left eye and minus four in her right eye. Inspired by the advertisement, I suggested to Miriam and Esther that they could pose in orange glasses. Note the difference in size between both frames. In terms of 1972, Esther is wearing the "dangerous" glasses and Miriam is posing in the "safe" glasses :).