Police sunglasses

As the owner and manager of a sunglass outlet, it is amazing to me the things that become popular. Take police officers. Almost everything about cops is viewed as uncool. Even your most conservative and law abiding citizen is likely to have some grudge or other against the police force. Police officers have silly looking mustaches, wear unflattering uniforms, are known to have weight problems, and in general are the model of everything you don't want to be or look like. Nevertheless, police sunglasses are, for some strange reason, very popular.

As a matter of fact, we can't get enough police sunglasses at the store. Everything from the Ray Ban sunglasses with mirrored lenses to the cheap police sunglasses from knockoff, import companies sells amazingly well. The funny thing is the people you see buying them. The folks who are least likely to like cops - bikers, hippies, stoners, and rockers - all love to wear police sunglasses. It is almost as if people have affection for the glasses in inverse proportion to how much they like cops.

I have had a couple theories about this over the years. One of my favorite ones is simply the police sunglasses have a pretty convenient design. They cover enough area to effectively eliminate glare, yet they don't have that big clunky wraparound look that was so popular for a couple minutes in the 80s. On second thought, however, this theory doesn't really hold up. People have never been practical about eye wear. From rose tinted lenses to granny glasses, the more wild a look, the more popular it becomes. Why should police sunglass frames be any different? Why would people buck the trend just to dress like cops?

For a while, I thought that the look was ironic. I figured that wearing police sunglasses was kind of like wearing an FBI jacket. You were wearing it precisely because you didn't agree with what it implied. Still, I see too many straightlaced people who also buy police designer sunglasses. Although they have become really popular with the bikers who come into the store, they are worn by every sector of society. Maybe people just can't decide what looks cool in sunglasses. They see so many cop shows where the police officers are wearing sunglasses that they just decide to go for the look. When it comes down to it, who really knows? I suppose it is as good a theory as any.