American Optical

If you want the genuine military-aviator lineage rather than a fashion homage, American Optical has a strong claim. AO made the first aviator-style sunglasses contracted by the US military — the D-1 in 1935 — and the teardrop shape it standardized in the AN6531 went on to influence essentially every aviator that followed. You are buying the frame that wrote the template, made in the United States, rather than a later interpretation of it.

AO has re-released three heritage lines worth knowing: the Original Pilot, the General and the Saratoga. The Original Pilot is the headline icon — the pair worn by the entire Apollo 11 crew — while the Saratoga carries presidential pedigree as a frequent pick of John F. Kennedy. If you want the most storied pair to start, the Original Pilot is the one with the deepest history.

Yes — and it is the brand's proudest fact. The Original Pilot was the pair of sunglasses worn by the entire Apollo 11 crew, with the original glasses now on display at the Smithsonian. Few eyewear makers can point to their product being on the first crewed Moon landing, which is a large part of the Original Pilot's mystique.

The AN6531 was American Optical's wartime aviator, standardized as "flying sun glasses (comfort cable)" in November 1941 and produced in the millions for pilots and sailors. Its teardrop-shaped lens was designed so pilots could glance down at their instrument panels, and that shape went on to influence all future aviator styling. Details like the copper-alloy frame — chosen so it would not interfere with compasses — show how much utility was engineered into it.

He did. After Kennedy visited AO's original manufacturing site in Southbridge, Massachusetts in 1958, the brand became a go-to of the president, and the Saratoga line was one he wore frequently. That presidential association is part of why the Saratoga still reads as a piece of mid-century American style.

It is one of the oldest names in eyewear, founded in 1833 by William Beecher. The company was later bought by a fellow apprentice, Robert H. Cole, who became its largest shareholder and first president; by the time he retired in 1891, AO was producing roughly two million frames and a million pairs of lenses a year. Nearly two centuries of history sit behind the brand.

AO designs and manufactures in the United States. The company is based in Vernon Hills, Illinois, near Chicago, where production moved after STATE Optical acquired American Optical Eyewear in 2020. Domestic manufacturing has long been part of the brand's identity, going back to its original site in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

In March 2020, STATE Optical Company, a division of Europa Eyewear, acquired American Optical Eyewear and moved its equipment and production to a facility outside Chicago. That is the ownership behind the modern AO Eyewear brand, distinct from the older corporate history when parts of the business were divested by Warner-Lambert in the 1980s and 90s.

Yes — and it broke ground doing so. In 1952, Claire McCardell and American Optical released a version of cat-eye glasses, described as the first eyewear line by a fashion designer. So alongside its gun sights, goggles and aviators for the armed forces, AO has a genuine claim to one of the earliest designer-eyewear collaborations.

Because it supplied the armed forces for decades. AO ran mobile units that provided more than two million glasses to troops in World War I, and supplied gun sights, aviation goggles and sunglasses in World War II. Its frames carried Army/Navy specification numbers and kept being issued well after the war, which is why so many of its heritage designs trace straight back to military contracts.