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01Where the glare goes

GQUEEN Polarized Sunglasses

Every frame on this page carries a polarizing filter and a UV400 rating, named separately on each card: pilots, rounds, a browline, a cat-eye, a bendy TR90 and a two-pair rectangle.

  • 8 frames
  • 44 ways to buy them
  • 36 colourways
  • 48 to 62 mm lens width
  • $13.98 to $25.99

Colourways on this page: Gold / grey, Gold / blue mirrored, Gold / pink mirrored, Silver / silver mirrored, Gold / brown, Gold / gold mirrored, Gold / black, Silver / blue mirrored, and 28 more.

A polarizing filter is a set of parallel lines in the lens that block light bouncing off a flat surface, which is why a lake stops being a sheet of white and the road ahead loses its shimmer. It has nothing to do with ultraviolet: the UV400 rating on these frames is a second claim, and the ophthalmologists say plainly that polarization by itself provides no UV protection. The GQUEEN card prints both, one under the other, because a buyer standing at a counter cannot tell either from the tint.

What the filter costs is worth knowing before you order. A polarized lens makes a phone screen, a petrol pump display and some car dashboards go dark at certain angles, and it can hide the sheen on an icy patch. The S904 oversized square is on the site without a filter for that reason, and so is every clear-lens frame. The rest of the range has one, and the frames that earn it most are the ones that spend the day near water: the metal pilot, the TR90 with its rubber tips, and the two-pair rectangle that lives in a glovebox.

Every colourway here is priced on its own; the GQUEEN collection keeps the figures current and the till is what decides.

02About these frames

Questions about GQUEEN Polarized Sunglasses

Where the glare goes

Are all GQUEEN sunglasses polarized?

No, and the card says which. The two pilots, the browline, both rounds, the cat-eye, the TR90 and the two-pair rectangle carry a polarizing filter. The oversized square S904 does not, and a handful of colourways within polarized frames are sold without the filter and marked as such. The clear-lens frames carry a UV rating and no filter.

Does a GQUEEN polarized lens block UV as well?

Yes, but by a separate rating: every polarized pair here is also UV400, which means the lens is rated to block ultraviolet to 400 nanometres. The two claims are printed separately on purpose. Polarization on its own does nothing about UV, and a lens can be UV400 without any filter in it.

Will your GQUEEN polarized sunglasses make a phone screen hard to read?

At some angles, yes. An LCD screen puts out polarized light of its own, and when the two filters cross, the screen goes dark until you tilt your head. It is the one real cost of the filter, and it is why the ophthalmologists suggest a non-polarized lens for anyone who reads instruments all day.

03Nearby

Where people go next

Every GQUEEN tint, every frame colour

Every tint, frame colour and two-pair box in the GQUEEN shelves sits behind this button, with the price we last read against each one.