In the Shades : Fashion: Sunglasses may be the ultimate statement of personal style. And new industry labeling will help in selecting them for function.

Look at it this way: What is more California, what is more Southern California, what is more Los Angeles than sunglasses?

What is more unisex, egalitarian and affordable? What is both completely functional and yet exquisitely superfluous?

What makes a statement like sunglasses?

At the beach, they are a utilitarian tool. But put them on in a saloon and they give off a different message: Don’t approach me (I’m hung over, or, I’m crying), but if you do, I have a story to tell.

There are sunglasses for high-fashion types, for street gangs and motorcycle cops, for celebrities and alcoholics, banana republic dictators and the U.S. Secret Service. There are sunglasses for the high-tech “performance” crowd, for the outdoorsy set, for shooters and surfers and flyers and outlaw bikers, and even sunglasses enough to please the righteous consumer activists.

In fact, there are 56.3 million pairs of sunglasses in the greater Southland.

That number is imaginary, dreamed up here on the spot. But you would find it difficult to prove there are fewer.

Now, even the federal government has elbowed its way into the picture to try to make sunglasses live up to their promise, more or less.

The “function” part of sunglasses, after all, has always been to shield the eyes from scorching discomfort of sunlight.

Experts have determined that exposure to ultraviolet light rays causes cataracts. You cannot see UV light, and you cannot look through a pair of sunglasses and tell how much of it is actually being filtered.

Now, voluntary and interim labeling developed last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Sunglass Assn. of America divides sunglasses into three ranges.

First are lightly tinted “cosmetic” lenses. These offer minimal protection, about the same as your car windshield. It is said that a light rose-tinted lens helps with reflection from VDTs, but otherwise cosmetic lenses are to sunglasses what potato chips are to a healthy diet.

Next is “general purpose.” These are the broad middle group of sunglasses that the FDA says will filter enough UV to reduce “the chances that a wearer will suffer either short-range discomfort or long-range damage to the eyes” during everyday outdoor activities and driving.

The “special purpose” category is very dark lenses and strong UV blockers. These are meant for extreme glare and exposure conditions, such as ski slopes and tropical beaches.

The three classifications are appearing this spring and summer, but are insufficient, according to some leading experts.

Dr. Richard Young, professor of medicine at UCLA and a member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, says the standards are the industry’s attempt to ward off stricter controls. He believes it is a “fatal weakness” that none of the categories requires 100% UV protection.

“None of them is up to the basic beginning of what I think sunglasses, all glasses, should be, which is total blockage of UV radiation. These rays do nothing for vision. The only effect is harmful. All glasses of all kinds should block it out. It’s like X-rays--you wouldn’t say it’s OK to block only 50% of the X-rays,” says Young, who has written a book on cataracts.

To meet growing consumer concern, some sunglasses on the market--in a wide range of tints, from light to dark--exceed the FDA/industry standard and offer 100% UV blockage. Some specialty mail-order houses such as Hidalgo Inc. in Wimberly, Tex., do their own testing and catalogue labeling for comparison shopping. An optometrist can treat most sunglasses for UV protection at a cost of about $10.

The FDA has written to sunglass manufacturers encouraging them to use full-disclosure UV labeling, and a spokeswoman for the FDA said the agency is still looking at whether to institute something like this as a requirement.

If sunglasses were for function alone, however, they would be like “orthopedic shoes for the face,” as one Southern California designer put it.

We look to glasses to give us a look.

The newest on the scene, no contest, is the big return of the big Jackie O (enormous, tortoise shell shades suitable for hiding and, failing that, for a firestorm of flashbulbs). Los Angeles designer Michele Lamy is bringing them back next month, as part of her eye wear collection. Already women are scrambling to order a pair.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour (devilishly prim frames) brought sunglasses indoors for the female business executive.

As for men, Jack Nicholson (in expensive take-offs on Ray Bans) proved that sunglasses are perfect anywhere, any time to enhance the middle-aged man’s sex appeal.

Politically, a couple of world leaders watched the decline of communism through very un-rose colored glasses--Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega (he purchased $3,500 worth in one New York shopping spree) and Polish President Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski (Eastern Bloc blocky frames).

Hunter S. (Saigon mirror/bat wing) Thompson and Elton (you name it) John prove that sunglasses still frame our eccentrics. Sports figures like Jim McMahon (iridescent fly-eyes) and Brian (wild wrap-arounds) Bosworth have become celebrated salesmen for the proposition that nothing adds a quirk to one’s image quite like sunglasses.

“Glasses are the fashion and the clothing is the accessory,” says Barbara McReynolds, president of the chic L.A. Eyeworks. “If what’s on your face is not right, the rest of you is wrong.”