Nov 12, 2009 05:36 PM
8638 Views
I'm on my 2nd pair of Ray-Ban Aviators. I still have my first pair which I bought in 1990. They have the Drivers lenses, which unfortunately aren't made anymore. I dropped them a few times on pavement so now I have some small gouges in the lenses but I still wear them. Amazingly they didn't break even though they're glass. What I never liked about the old lenses was no anti-reflective coating(Bausch & Lomb, the original Ray-Ban maker, didn't coat them in 1990), so sometimes you'd see a reflection of your cheek on the inside of the glasses.
I bought a 2nd pair a few weeks ago, this time the polarized style(the 002/58 style, black frame/G15 polarized glass lens). B&L didn't make polarized lenses for the Aviators in 1990; I'm glad Luxottica now offers them in this frame. These fit just as well as my old pair, so Luxottica didn't change the frame design much at all. There are minor changes, namely the use of silicone nose pads. The lenses are fantastic though, they do a great job of cutting the glare and the inside of the lens is anti-reflective coated so reflections off your cheeks are just about gone.
If you want the true Aviator style, this is it. I've found no other brand that has copied the original Ray-Ban style, and to this day they are the only frame that just "fits".
A few caveats about polarized lenses: any polarized lens could dim(or completely black out) an LCD display. Typically it's not an issue in the car since the polarizing filter in the LCD is canted off vertical axis. Another is when driving a car with tinted windows, you may see rainbow distortion, namely in other car windows and on the road surface. It's interference patterns in the tempered glass that the tinting+ polarized filter exaggerate and will happen with ANY polarized filter coupled with tinted windows. I've gotten used to it but it is weird the first time you see it.
