Polaroid, the company founded by Edwin H Land to sell his groundbreaking invention, is now best known for instant cameras. But did you know they started off in sunglasses?

In the 1930s, the Polaroid Corporation produced the first-ever sunglasses with a polarising filter, a now-commonplace innovation that screens out the sun’s glare without darkening the wearer’s vision. In this 1987 TV advertisement, Aussie beach culture takes centre stage, capturing how the glasses were marketed to a local audience used to harsh, bright days.

The ad captures the vibrant design trends of the 1980s, featuring abstraction, bold fashions and dynamic animation, where beachgoers are represented only by their Polaroid sunglasses and ostentatious hair. The high-energy, synth-inflected jingle, and the combination of hand-painted watercolours and photographic collage, show how the creative arena was incredibly porous at the time. Visual arts collided with mass advertising, the music industry with the screen, resulting in sequences that blur the lines between artwork, music video and commercial product.