Persol’s first lenses were made for pilots, not film stars.
A Turin photographer named Giuseppe Ratti made the first pairs in 1917 for aviators and racing drivers — round smoked glass in rubber rims, held on with elastic bands. He named the glasses Persol, from per il sole, “for the sun.” In 2006 a folding 714 pair that Steve McQueen owned sold at auction for $70,200.
Persol on Brandseum