Vintage Tart Arnel eyeglass

It is unfortunate that some of us have to wear glasses. However, with eyewear, one can have fun with a variety of eyeglasses to add spices to our life.

Recently, I have come across a very nice vintage eyeglass TART made famous by some celebrities. As a collector of vintage items like watches and pens, it is natural that vintage eyewer become the next...

Tart Optical Enterprises Inc. (OTE) was a small but legendary maker of eye frames founded in New York City in the mid 1940's. Through the years, Tart Optical optical frames have consistently reflected the demands of the optical market and the trends of fashion. Tart Optical has always been associated with maintaining a high caliber of quality product sold by the company. Plastics frames became more popular during the late thirties, in part because World War II pushed the use of plastic by creating a scarcity of other more traditional materials used previously. OTE was there at the beginning long before fabrication and finishing procedures developed.In the beginning OTE used basic colors, few more than black or tortoise. However, as they became available, other colors and patterns were added. The frames became highly decorated, and often included dimensional metal trims. In the women?s collection Austrian baguettes and rhinestones were used "to dress a frame with luxury."

Combination frames made their debut during the late forties and OTE's experience in the manufacture of metals and plastics put the company in a position to supply beautiful blends of the materials. These new blends became suddenly in complementary demand. The resulting successful products made Tart Optical a major international supplier of combination frames and plastic zylesl.

At the same time Tart Optical made a bold move in creating the first ever 7 barrel hinge, making their frames more durable and ultimately establishing a trademark in unsurpassed quality and excellence to this day.

Although the Tart Arnel has been around for many years, the frame had become famous again recently, specifically because it was worn by Johnny Depp in Secret Window, along with the many pairs he wears off screen. Other celebrities, such as Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Jeff Goldblum have been seen wearing the Tart Arnel. Even before these celebrities, the famous James Dean has also worn the Tart Arnel.These authentic Tart Arnel's feature the famous spear shields on the front and temples, and the "oTe" shield stamp on the inside of the temples.

My pair below is a pair of 1950s NOS in black. The challenge in finding these vintage eyewear is that one has to find firstly, the NOS (new old stocks) from some old shops, and the extreme difficulties is to find it in the size that fits the frame of your face...which is the hardest..but fun!