Selecting a pair of glasses can be a tricky business. With so many styles and labels available, the choice is as much about making a fashion statement as gaining perfect vision. Cult Eyewear is the first book to give an account of the world’s top eyewear brands, from Ray-Ban to J.F. Rey, Persol to Polaroid, and from the 1780s to the present day. Neil Handley, an authority on the history of eyewear, selects more than 30 famous names that have enduring appeal and command a dedicated following, and discusses the history of each brand and its most iconic spectacles or sunglasses. The book also includes a concise illustrated introduction to the evolution of eyewear; innovative designs and historically important inventions; films and key personalities associated with particular designs or brands through the years; and other fascinating aspects of this global industry.

Cool Shades provides the first in-depth exploration of the enduring appeal of sunglasses in visual culture, both historically and today. Ubiquitous in fashion, advertising, film and graphic design, sunglasses are the ultimate signifier of 'cool' in mass culture; a powerful attribute pervading much fashion and pop cultural imagery which has received little scholarly attention until now. Accessible and highly engaging, this book offers an original history of how sunglasses became a fashion accessory in the early twentieth century, and addresses the complex variety of meanings they have the power to articulate, through associations with vision, light, glamour, darkness, fashion, speed and technology in the context of modernity. Cool Shades will be of great interest to students of fashion, design, visual and material culture, cultural studies and sociology, as well as general readers fascinated by this iconic fashion staple.

'Elegant and multi-focal. Glorious!' Simon Garfield 'It will make you look at specs with fresh eyes' New Statesman 'Lively, engaging and admirably wide-ranging' The Times 'Fascinating' Observer The humble pair of glasses might just be one of the world's greatest inventions, allowing millions to see a world that might otherwise appear a blur. And yet how much do many of us really think about these things perched on the ends of our noses? Through the Looking Glasses traces the fascinating story of spectacles: from their inception as primitive visual aids for monkish scribes right through to today's designer eyewear and the augmented reality of Google Glass. There are encounters with ingenious medieval Italian glassmakers, myopic Renaissance rulers and spectacle-makers, as well as the silent movie star Harold Lloyd, the rock'n'roller Buddy Holly and the full-screen figure of Marilyn Monroe. This is a book about vision and the need for humanity to see clearly, and where the impulse to improve our eyesight has led us.

This is the first full-length study of spectacles in the Victorian period. It examines how the Victorians shaped our understanding of functional visual capacity and the concept of 20:20 vision. Demonstrating how this unique assistive device can connect the histories of medicine, technology and disability, it charts how technology has influenced our understanding of sensory perception, both through the diagnostic methods used to measure visual impairment and the utility of spectacles to ameliorate its effects. Taking a material culture approach, the book assesses how the design of spectacles thwarted ophthalmologists’ attempts to medicalise their distribution and use, as well as creating a mainstream marketable device on the high street.

This volume brings together writing on the topic of home media, and in particular releases described as appealing to ‘cult’ fans and audiences. Despite popular assumptions to the contrary, the distributors of physical media maintain a vivid presence in the digital age. Perhaps more so than any other category of film or media, this is especially the case with titles considered ‘cult’ and its related processes of distribution and exhibition. The chapters in this collection chart such uses and definitions of ‘cult’, ranging from home media re-releases to promotional events, film screenings, file-sharing and the exploitation of established fan communities. This book will be of interest to the ever-growing number of academics and research students that are specializing in studies of cult cinema and fan practices, as well as professionals (filmmakers, journalists, promoters) who are familiar with these types of films.

How might we develop products made with and by disabled users rather than for them? Could we change living and working spaces to make them accessible rather than designing products that "fix" disabilities? How can we grow our capabilities to make designs more “bespoke” to each individual? After Universal Design brings together scholars, practitioners, and disabled users and makers to consider these questions and to argue for the necessity of a new user-centered design. As many YouTube videos demonstrate, disabled designers are not only fulfilling the grand promises of DIY design but are also questioning what constitutes meaningful design itself. By forcing a rethink of the top-down professionalized practice of Universal Design, which has dominated thinking and practice around design for disability for decades, this book models what inclusive design and social justice can look like as activism, academic research, and everyday life practices today. With chapters, case studies, and interviews exploring questions of design and personal agency, hardware and spaces, the experiences of prosthetics' users, conventional hearing aid devices designed to suit personal style, and ways of facilitating pain self-reporting, these essays expand our understanding of what counts as design by offering alternative narratives about creativity and making. Using critical perspectives on disability, race, and gender, this book allow us to understand how design often works in the real world and challenges us to rethink ideas of "inclusion" in design.

From 13th century Franciscan monks to Beyoncé in Black is King, Making a Spectacle charts the fascinating ascension of eyeglasses—from an unsightly but useful tool to fashion's must-have accessory. The power of glasses to convey a range of vivid messages about their wearers have made them into a billion-dollar business that appeals to cool kids and rock stars, and those who want to be like them, but the fashionable history of eyeglasses is fraught with anxiety and drama. At the beginning of the 20th century, the assessment in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar was that spectacles were "invariably disfiguring." Invisibility was the best option, and glasses were only to be put on once the lights at the opera went dark. While variations of that glasses-shaming sentiment appeared at regular intervals over the next 100 years or so, eyeglasses continued to evolve into an endless array of shapes, colors, purposes, and personalities. Once sunglasses took off in the 1930s, the magazine editorial made glasses a conspicuous part of the fashion narrative. Eyeglasses went to the ski slopes, the stables, the beach, the Havana hotel. Plastic innovations made a candy-colored rainbow of cat-eyes and "starlet" styles possible. Suddenly, everyone had the opportunity to look like Jackie O on vacation in Capri. Making a Spectacle traces contemporary high fashion frames back to their origins: the military aviator, the glam cat eye, the nerdly Oxford, the high-tech shield, the fanciful butterfly, the lowly rimless, and other styles all make an appearance. Featuring interviews with influential designers, makers, and purveyors of glasses including Adam Selman, Kerin Rose Gold, and l.a. Eyeworks, Making a Spectacle also takes a look at today's most cutting edge eyewear, showing the reader the latest and most innovative ways to see and be seen.

Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.

Consumers are changing, and the businesses that form around them are principled, purposeful and creative. The next generation of entrepreneurs think differently, and Cult Status will show you how you can too. Enough has been written about huge cult brands founded last century – Nike, Apple, Red Bull. What will the cult companies of tomorrow look like? Who is amassing the kind of passionate community that makes a brand a massive, long-term, sustainable success? Tim Duggan, co-founder of one of Australia's most innovative and awarded new media companies, has studied hundreds of successful entrepreneurs and change makers over the last decade to uncover what they all have in common. Learn from the founders of modern brands like Blake Mycoskie (TOMS), Zoë Foster Blake (Go-To), Tim Brown (Allbirds), Daniel Flynn (Thankyou), Lucy Moss (SIX), Oscar McMahon (Young Henrys) and more. In this book you'll discover: •The 7 Steps to building a business with cult status•The one thing you should do before starting something new•Why every business of the future needs to balance profit and purpose together•How to have just as much impact working inside a company as you can from outside•The leadership trait every new leader needs•How to create a passionate community around you and your work•14 practical exercise you can do today to set up for success tomorrow Armed with this book, anyone from anywhere can help create the next business with serious cult status. "We're at a point in history where we can create what we want the future to look like. This book is a road map to that future." Naomi Simson, Shark Tank investor and Founder of RedBalloon "Tim has extraordinary insight into the evolving relationship between companies and the communities that they serve." Osher Günsberg "Cult Status is like the love child of your savviest BFF and a business sage. This will be the manual for a generation of millennial entrepreneurs." Lorraine Murphy, Entrepreneur and author of Remarkability "This book challenges you to question what impact you want to have, and provides a guide to help you rally people around you to achieve outcomes you are passionate about." Alex Greenwich, Member for Sydney

As seen in the HBO docuseries THE VOW: The shocking and subversive memoir of a 12-year-NXIVM-member-turned-whistleblower, and her inspiring true story of abuse, escape, and redemption. "'Master, would you brand me? It would be an honor.' From the second I climb onto the table, acutely aware that I am lying in the sweat of my sisters, I will have blocked that out. Lying there completely naked, I am at my most vulnerable but determined to prove my strength. I try to keep my legs closed as my body wills itself to protect my most private area. . . . I tell myself: I am a warrior. I birthed a human. I can handle pain. But nothing could have ever prepared me for the feel of this fire on my skin." Scarred is Sarah Edmondson's compelling memoir of her recruitment into the NXIVM cult, the 12 years she spent within the organization (during which she enrolled over 2,000 members and entered DOS—NXIVM's "secret sisterhood"), her breaking point, and her harrowing fight to get out, to expose Keith Raniere and the leadership, to help others, and to heal. Complete with personal photographs, Scarred is also an eye-opening story about abuses of power, female trust and friendship, and how sometimes the search to be "better" can override everything else. • In the tradition of Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman, Escape by Carolyn Jessop, and Troublemaker by Leah Remini • This tell-all follows Sarah from the moment she takes her first NXIVM seminar, to the invitation she accepts from her best friend, Lauren Salzman, into DOS, to her journey toward become a key witness in the federal case against its founders • Evokes questions about friendship, ethics, good and evil, making it a brilliant selection for book clubs Audio edition read by the author.