Sunglass products can be divided into various types according to different rules, like women’s, men’s, unisex or children’s sunglasses, prescription or non-prescription sunglasses, performance or polarized sunglasses. These groups are generated based on user types and additional properties. According to frame styles, sunglasses in different models developed by sunwear manufacturers have full frame, semi rimless and frameless types. Among these three categories, frameless sunglasses might be the most special. From a historical perspective, sunglasses are made with large lenses wrapped by a same size of frame. This large size has long been expected to cover the whole eye socket so as to block out unwanted, harmful UV rays and blue light. This typical design has been the mainstream since the beginning of sunwear. The use of full frames is quite reasonable that large lenses need to be held stably.
However, the past decade has witnessed a change in this field that semi rimless sunglasses and frameless sunglasses have been equally available. These two later comers do not change the basic appearance of sunwear. They still take use of lenses that are relatively larger than most prescription eyeglass lenses. As their names indicate, the change occurs in frame design. While semi rimless sunglasses have a half frame going around the top section of the lenses, rimless ones have only temples and a bridge. Rimless sunglasses have created an extreme that the temples are attached directly onto the large lenses using tiny screws. And the fact is that the large lenses can stay stably because most sunwear lenses are made of plastics.
What benefits can we expect from wearing frameless sunglasses? Like rimless prescription eyeglasses, the rimless style applied to sunwear industry makes related models more attractive and fashionable. In addition, sunglasses are used by more and more people during contacting activities and sports. A frameless pair is certainly more lightweight than a full frame or semi rimless pair. This advantage may help athletes improve performance during competitive contests. This explains the phenomenon that frameless sunwear is widely taken as performance sunglasses.