The invention of glasses is crucial because it allows millions of people to enjoy good eyesight. To see well is not only to live without putting oneself in danger, to enjoy everything that surrounds us but it is also to acquire knowledge and to enjoy the beauty of the world.

• Thus, from the 1st century , Seneca and Pliny the Elder described the magnifying glass effect of water or an emerald that Nero used to follow the fights in the arenas. Glasses were polished in antiquity to generate heat and burn a specific point.
• Several scholars from the Middle East improved the polishing of glass and wrote treatises as early as the 10th century. These works were translated into Latin in the 12th century. It was in monasteries that the first "reading stones" appeared, created by monks in rock crystal or quartz.
• The first glasses were created in Italy in the 13th century. Two rimmed lenses were then joined by rivets, a process that would evolve over time. These rivets were later replaced by wooden hoops and frames with a wire.

From the 16th century onwards, leather, turtle shell, whale bones, iron, silver and bronze were added to adorn the frames. The frame then remained an expensive and prestigious object.

Contemporary glasses will make their appearance in the 18th century with the appearance of frames with branches thanks to an English optician. But glasses without branches remain fashionable in the bourgeoisie with monocles in the 16th century, binocles in the 18th century and hand faces in the 19th.

Modern spectacles with arms began to spread from 1850. Their design is still much the same today. Attention is paid to improving the wearer's comfort, particularly with advances in nose pads.