Urban Code Magazine

Archive for September, 2009

Any time of year, sunglasses should be a part of your daily heath-consciousness routine. Sunglasses are not just for summers on the beach anymore or just for looking cool and mysterious. Designer sunglasses are no longer just for wealthy movie stars. Sunglasses are crucial in protecting your eyes from the permanent damaging effects of Ultra Violet radiation.

Sunglasses in some form have been around for a very long time. Roman Emperor Nero made sunglasses by watching gladiator competitions through polished light emerald green gems held up to his eyes. The true invention of sunglasses was somewhere between 1268 and 1289.

Before 1430, smoky quartz, flat-paned sunglasses were worn by Judges in the Courts of China to conceal any expression in their eyes. Prescription sunglasses were developed in Italy in 1430 and were later used by the Chinese Judges. In the mid 18th Century, James Ayscough developed blue and green corrective lenses, beginning the use of sunglasses for correcting optical impairments.

Until 1730 when Edward Scarlett invented hardened sidepieces, there were problems in keeping eyeglasses propped on the nose. Glasses frames had been made from leather, bones and metal and sidepieces began as silk strips of ribbon that looped around the ears. Instead of loops, the Chinese added ceramic weights to the ends of the ribbons. Benjamen Franklin’s invention of bifocal lenses followed in 1780.

By the 20th Century, sunglasses were used to protect the eyes from the sun. In 1929 Sam Foster’s “Foster Grants” were the first mass-produced sunglasses and they began the trend of sunglasses for fashion.

In the 1930′s the Army Air Corps asked Bausch & Lomb to develop sunglasses that would efficiently reduce high-altitude sun glare for pilots and they came up with dark green tinted sunglasses that absorbed light through the yellow spectrum.

Edward H. Land had invented the Polaroid filter and by 1936 he used it in making sunglasses and soon, sunglasses became “cool.” Movies stars began wearing sunglasses to hide behind and for fashion. Aviator glasses became popular with the movie stars and the general public in 1937 after Ray Ban developed the anti-glare sunglasses using polarization. The longer lens was created to give more protection to pilots’ eyes from light reflecting off their control panels.

By the 1970′s Hollywood stars and fashion designers made a huge impact on the sunglasses market. Clothing designers and stars put their names on glasses and sunglasses and everyone had to have them. In 2007, stars are still hiding behind their oversized designer sunglasses, making fashion statements and protecting their eyes from the harmful effects of the Ultra Violet radiation.
Today’s trendy designer sunglasses are a status symbol; however, in order to be fashionable in sunglasses, you do not have to give up quality. Quality designer sunglasses can be polarized to reduce the glare of sunlight reflecting off surfaces like the highway, cars, water or snow. Polarized sunglasses work by blocking off horizontal light reflections and only let in vertical light reflections. The polarization of designer sunglasses makes them fashionable in other areas of lifestyle like golfing, boating, biking, swimming, fishing and aircraft flying.

Marketers of designer sunglasses target children who choose the same hot styles and brand-names as their parents and their idols. Sunglasses for children have Disney and cartoon characters in many colors, shapes and styles. Children’s designer sunglasses can also be polarized to block the harmful UV radiation.

With modern technology and improvements, the making of sunglasses continues to evolve. We have gone from holding green gems up to our eyes to Oakley’s 2004 sunglasses with digital audio players built in.

If you are active in exercising, hiking, sports or any other type of physical activity that requires you to be on your feet often, athletic shoes are a must. These shoes are designed for comfort and support, durability and promise to withstand plenty of use. With a few simple tips, you will be ready to shop for athletic shoes and will soon be stepping out with confidence.

Comfort. The first thing to consider with any footwear, including athletic shoes, is comfort. If a shoe isn’t comfortable, there is no use in wearing it. Blisters, balance problems and overall discomfort are the result of poorly fitting shoes.

Affordability. Just because you are looking for a new pair of athletic shoes, there’s no reason to empty the bank account in doing so. Quality athletic shoes can be comfortable and affordable at the same time. By shopping around and comparing prices, you will find the perfect athletic shoes at the perfect price.

Durability. A good pair of shoes must be durable and able to withstand various weather conditions, including rain. The worst thing to have in a rain storm is leaky shoes, which is why durability is part of a quality pair of athletic shoes.

Design. Everyone wants a shoe that looks good, which is why design is very important. In selecting a color scheme that suits your taste and lifestyle, you will not only feel good in your new athletic shoes, but you will look good too.

Versatility. One of the most important factors of shoe selection is versatility. Will the shoes work with your daily exercise regimen and look equally snazzy with your favorite pair of jeans? Athletic shoes are a terrific compliment to blue jeans for a classic look.

Support. Every good athletic shoe has support. It should cradle the foot and make it feel as if every step is one of leisure. Support is very important, especially if you are involved in a lot of walking or running. In either of these instances, your feet really take a pounding on the pavement. Athletic shoes that feature support are noticeable immediately during wear.

Know what you are buying. Always purchase from a reputable, authorized athletic shoe retailer. There are a lot of imitation products out there, including clothing and footwear. Buying from an authorized retailer will eliminate the chances of buying fake merchandise.

Try before you buy. If you are purchasing locally, go in and sample several pairs of athletic shoes. Try them on, take a few steps and move your foot around inside the shoe. In making sure that you have ease of movement and a proper fit, you will be much happier with your purchase.

Layaway. Certain brands of athletic shoes can be expensive, which is why layaway is often a popular option for anyone who doesn’t have quite enough cash to pay upfront. Even if it’s just to secure a purchase until payday, layaway programs offer customers with the opportunity to own the perfect pair of athletic shoes.

Make sure the shoe fits with your lifestyle. Avoid purchasing anything that doesn’t really fit your schedule. Athletic shoes are designed to work with you and your level of activity.

We use various ways to express ourselves. We either use words or we use other symbols. We make use of signals, we make use of gestures and we also make use of fashion to tell the world what we want to say. When we put on our clothes for the day, it is like we are declaring to the world our attitude for the day. This is the reason why it is so interesting to observe the back-to-school fashion preferences of people. The back to school fashion preference of a person shows who he will be for the whole term in a nutshell.

There are those people who wear practically the same thing they did in the last term. The bad thing about this is that this could be an indication of little to no personal growth in the past term. This could be an indication that the person did not mature in the past year. What could make this worse is if that person had been wearing the same fashion for more than 5 years. That could be an indicator of a serious problem.

The positive interpretation of this could be that the person has matured enough to have found his or her identity in life. This type of back-to-school fashion could indicate that a person is already perfectly happy with the image that he or she presents and that they feel no urge to change. It could also be an indication that the person has had a great past year and wishes to recapture that year.

There are people who exhibit great changes in their back to school fashion. There is also a good side and a bad side to this. The good interpretation of this is that the person has experienced an epiphany. A change in back-to-school fashion could be an indicator that a person has reached a new level of maturity and is ready to face the world with a new attitude. He or she could be declaring to the world that he or she is a new person, changed for the better and willing to tackle the world head on.

There is also a dark side to this change in back-to-school fashion. A person could have suffered from an event so cataclysmic that it required the person to reject his or her old personality entirely. A drastic change in back-to-school fashion could be akin to a person screaming, “I am not who I used to be. It will not happen to me anymore!” not all changes are good and not all changes are bad. That fact must be understood.

There are students whose back to school fashion is based on what a certain group is wearing. The positive side to this is that it indicates social acceptance. A person who has this type of back to school fashion shows that he or she is sociable and knows how to make friends with at least a certain group of people. However, this could also be an indication of a lack of initiative. People who dress the way others do may do so because they don’t really have any idea of what to wear. They let their groups decide their fashion because without the group, they really have no idea who they are.

Now you know that back to school fashion is a great indication of who a person is.