Polaroid-AMERICAN EYEWEAR BRAND
American brand of eyewear. The brainchild of Edwin Land (1909, Connecticut), an aspiring inventor with his own laboratory in Cambridge (Mass.), who received an order from Eastman Kodak for polarizing filters for cameras worth 10 million dollars in 1934. Land, working with his young assistant George Wheelwright, had in fact registered the patent for polarizing filters, obtained by the perfect vertical alignment of millions of miniscule needles of iodine. Land’s wife Clarence Kennedy gave the product is name, Polaroid.
The first press conference about polaroid
The first press conference about Polaroid was held at Harvard on 30 January 1936: Land later told how the journalists attending were already wearing his glasses made with polarizing filters. The Polaroid Corporation was founded in 1937. Over a million pairs of “polarized” glasses were sold in 1939, and by 1940 Polaroid had 240 employees. In 1948 Polaroid started manufacturing cameras in addition to glasses and lenses. In the 1950s Land’s glasses became a cult object in Europe as well, a status symbol for the new generation.
The current manufacturing methods are still based on Land’s principles
The current manufacturing methods are still based on Land’s principles: the original filters block the glaring horizontal light reflected by water, snow, ice, and wet roads. In addition to two polarizing filters the lenses are coated with two UV filters to protect against damaging rays, two “cushions” to make them shatter-resistant, and two hard resin layers to make them scratch-resistant. There are about 150 designs with 600 variations of shape, polarization, and lens color. The Xoor collection, created in 1997 with the slogan “fashion and function” is designed for maximum comfort and vision and is characterized by the most up-to-date Italian design. The Furore collection combines Polaroid’s know-how with Italian design flair.
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