The func­tion­al coat­ings

Lens coat­ings serve to pro­tect both the lens­es and the per­son wear­ing them.

MIR­RORED LENS­ES - For ex­am­ple, lens­es with a mir­ror coat­ing serve two func­tions. Not only is a mir­ror ef­fect a vir­tu­al re­quire­ment in the world of eye­wear in re­sponse to fash­ion trends, it also plays a cru­cial role in terms of pro­tec­tion. In fact, a mir­rored coat­ing re­flects light off of the lens, so it acts as a phys­i­cal bar­ri­er pro­tect­ing your eyes. By sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duc­ing the amount of light that reach­es your eyes, mir­rored lens­es help to re­duce eye strain.

As a re­sult, mir­rored lens­es are great for any­one who en­joys out­door ac­tiv­i­ties in bright sun­light, such as on the wa­ter, at the beach, or high up in the moun­tains.

Mir­ror­ing is achieved by ap­ply­ing mul­ti­ple lay­ers of coat­ing and can be done on both neu­tral and grad­u­at­ed fil­ters.

At Di­v­el Italia, we di­vide our mir­ror­ing into three types:

• CLAS­SIC MIR­ROR­ING: gold, sil­ver and blue
• MUL­TI­LAY­ER MIR­ROR­ING: in fash­ion col­ors
• FLASH MIR­ROR­ING: for a soft­er, more del­i­cate ef­fect

PO­LAR­IZED LENS­ES - When the sun is high in the sky and its light hits a re­flec­tive sur­face, it caus­es glare and can blur your vi­sion. Sun­glass­es with po­lar­ized lens­es block this re­flect­ed light so that you can see with greater clar­i­ty and de­f­i­n­i­tion.

Po­lar­ized lens­es have a so­lar fil­ter that in­cludes a dark, pro­tec­tive film that per­ma­nent­ly col­ors the lens. This spe­cial coat­ing is ap­plied to the sur­face of the lens in or­der to re­duce glare. On its own, this fil­ter doesn’t block any UV rays, so, when­ev­er buy­ing a pair of glass­es with po­lar­ized lens­es, you should al­ways check the lev­el of UV fil­ter the lens­es pro­vide.

The sole pur­pose of this po­lar­iza­tion is to give lens­es this anti-re­flec­tion func­tion. By en­sur­ing greater con­trast, you see more clear­ly with re­duced glare, so you can have more con­fi­dence in what you see around you. Po­lar­ized lens­es are great for every sport — es­pe­cial­ly sail­ing, cy­cling, and run­ning — and oth­er out­door ac­tiv­i­ties that in­volve con­stant ex­po­sure to sun­light.

They are also ide­al for dri­ving be­cause of their abil­i­ty to re­duce glare.

To see if a lens is po­lar­ized, hold it at a 90-de­gree an­gle and place it near a com­put­er screen. If the re­flec­tion from the screen is dark­ened, the lens­es are po­lar­ized.

Po­lar­ized lens­es can also be mir­rored.

PHO­TOCHROMIC - Pho­tochromic lens­es, too, are de­signed to re­duce glare, but they do more than that. They are also able to adapt to changes in am­bi­ent light. Un­der in­tense sun­light, these lens­es dark­en, and when there is less light, they light­en and be­come trans­par­ent. Pho­tochromic lens­es are great for peo­ple who are par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive to light, but also for any­one look­ing for con­ve­nience. Be­cause these lens­es ad­just au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, you don’t need to take off your glass­es when com­ing in­doors.

Pho­tochromic lens­es take ad­van­tage of a re­versible chem­i­cal re­ac­tion.

A pho­tochromic lens coat­ing in­cludes pho­tochromic pig­ments that re­act to light. Pho­tochromic lens­es are per­fect for a cloudy day, when you fre­quent­ly go back and forth be­tween in­doors and out, and in any sit­u­a­tion in which light­ing con­di­tions change fre­quent­ly. Be­cause of this con­ve­nience, pho­tochromic lens­es are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing used for pre­scrip­tion eye­wear. Cor­rec­tive lens­es with a pho­tochromic coat­ing are also nec­es­sary for any­one who suf­fers from a high de­gree of light sen­si­tiv­i­ty (pho­to­pho­bia).

DI­V­EL ITALIA pho­tochromic lens­es are avail­able in trans­par­ent (Fo­tochro­ma) and col­ored (Fo­to­col­or) ver­sions, both of which dark­en based on the am­bi­ent light­ing con­di­tions.