I was saving this topic for the summer months, but the president-elect’s recent vacation on Oahu reminded me that in some states, the sun shines even in winter. Daughter Sasha Obama’s “sassy pink sunglasses” (as the media called them) made me think about my family vacations when I was a kid. Though we didn’t have Secret Service protection or a press plane following us, most of our vacations were preceded by a visit to Thrifty Drugstore to buy new sunglasses. Choosing your own pair of sunglasses is one of the earliest fashion statements we can make when we're kids -- it can be our introduction to how we use our faces, and particularly our eyes, to communicate.

Click on any image for a larger version.

Like most fashion accessories, sunglasses have their roots in practicality, though oddly not to protect the eyes from the sun. Legends say that Roman emperor Nero preferred to watch gladiator fighting through emeralds. More certain is the twelfth-century practice of Chinese judges, who wore smoke-tinted glasses in court to hide facial expressions during witness questioning. Indeed, much of the early documentation of "sunglass" wearing is about hiding the eyes rather than protecting them.

By the mid-1700s, scientists were experimenting with colored lenses to correct vision impairments, and by the early 1900s it was common for syphilis patients to receive amber- or yellow-tinted lenses to counter increased sensitivity to light.

One interesting sunglass tradition has different origins than you might think. Early film stars began wearing tinted glasses not to create privacy, but to hide eyes made red by extremely bright arc lighting.

Eventually, fashion statement and eye protection came together in a form inexpensive enough to bring sunglasses into the mainstream. The credit for that goes to Sam Foster, who began selling inexpensive sunglasses under the brand Foster Grant on the beaches of Atlantic City in 1929.

Soon everyone was wearing sunglasses. Blind people wore them to make conversation more comfortable for sighted people; law enforcement found the anonymity and disconnect of shades a useful tool; and sunglasses even provided cover for eyes altered by drugs.

I found a great bunch of sunglass images in Life magazine. First, from 1938, are two Alfred Eisenstaedt shots of Carole Lombard and Marlene Dietrich, both showing their trend-setting fashion sense. Next is a 1958 Ralph Crane photograph of film director George Stevens studying a shot for the filming of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” And last, a 1960 Stan Wayman image of model June Pickney sporting a leopard fur coat and matching sunglasses.

Go to page 2 to experience the pain of clip-on sunglasses.