Very, very nice Francois!

Hey Francois. What are those? Who makes them?.. Disregard. Found it!

Finally got around to picking up some Randolph Engineering for the rotation and collection. I went with the Aviator and its military history:

Very nice!

Classic!

Finally got around to picking up some Randolph Engineering for the rotation and collection. I went with the Aviator and its military history:


- Oak

I bought the same pair a couple years ago. Really love the style as they seem to be the only aviators that look half decent on my face. Although I find them to be a little heavy. If I get another pair I'll try the polycarbonate lenses instead of glass to see if that makes a diffenrence

Polycarbonate is definitely lighter, but it doesn't hold up to daily wear and tear as well.

So Graphene is the new wonder material that some are saying will make up large components of planes and will be developed for semi-transparent electronics/wearable technology in the future (amongst other applications). For eyewear, it will first be used by RB in some of their ophthalmic frames. Cool stuff:


http://www.luxottica.com/en/luxottica-and-ray-ban-graphene-eyewear-revolution

RB may not have many fans with the Oakley crowd, but they are doing wonderful things.

It's super hard to manufacture and therefore hella expensive but yea it supposed into be the wonder material. They say if you could get in mass quantities you could make
Super batteries.

interesting stuff there. Never heard of it before this.

Graphene is actually a sheet of Carbon atoms that is only one atom thick. It has some amazing properties but it's so expensive I can't see it being used in consumer good in the near future.

This is probably some hybrid carbon-based material that is using the Graphene name for promotional purposes. Unless they charge 10,000's of dollars per frame.

It's supposedly real Graphene, custom-blended with other materials (by Directa Plus under the G+ range of products) to meet the propose it's suppose to achieve. Ultimately we don't know the ratio of Graphene to other material (probably not much since each frame is something like $220), but what an exciting development.

It's vital to Oakley's future that it always leads with innovation. It's Oakley's most important DNA and what its fans expect. So why does Lux take a new, cutting edge performance material and place it with Ray Ban?

I've always taken the Luxx merger with a grain of salt, but things like this show that they didn't really understand why they were buying Oakley aside from the financial aspect.

RB is definitely the preferred and favoured child in the Lux family.

It's vital to Oakley's future that it always leads with innovation. It's Oakley's most important DNA and what its fans expect. So why does Lux take a new, cutting edge performance material and place it with Ray Ban? - Bazooka

Excellent question...

When Oakley was acquired by Lux their CEO at the time, Andrea Guerra, was a big fan of Oakley and believed in its autonomy as a brand within the portfolio, Andrea was truly a "brand guy" and truly understood what Oakley stood for. Once Andrea departed and Mr. DelVechio stepped back in is when you saw a switch to less brand and more operations. Mr D is an industrialist and looks differently at what a brand stands for. He was also the driver behind acquiring and rebuilding Ray Ban back in the day. I'm sure there is some favoritism.

Still Graphene is a performance material that some leading sports brands are already using. Head for one. They use it in replacement of carbon and kevlar in skis and tennis rackets. Makes both stronger, lighter and more resilient. Sounds like the perfect material for sports performance eyewear.

So a followup question. What was the company mood when Oakley went public in 1996 vs the buyout in 2007. I imagine there was some uncertainty having shareholders to account for even at that first change in company structure.

Through all that though, it seems like 2015 was when the bottom truly fell out. My visit that year was so solemn, you could feel the tension compared to a year prior. At least for now, I'm seeing some signs of regrowth with the lobby redesign and museum. All is not lost.

Dann,

Great questions with a single word that quickly comes to my mind on both cultural moments. OPTIMISM!

Optimism that bred confidence was one of the best traits of the Oakley culture. Drinking the Koolaid was the optimism and Jim and our leadership team were great at delivering and driving it.

Going public was this sense of going into un charted territory with a belief that we will change the way Wall St. views us. At the time the brand was on fire, we had great loyalists and were clearly leading in the optical innovation. Jim was obviously the major shareholder and we had a killer board right from the start. I'd say we were too naive to be worried and thought that business would be as usual. For the most part it was. We still had our challenges in meeting the financial expectations and providing the analysts with the "raw meat" they wanted. In the end we had major dips, but we succeeded and didn't sell our soul in doing so. For all of us involved it was an amazing career experience and it truly brought our great talent to a whole new level.

Being acquired by Lux. We prefer to say that we "merged". Once again the optimism kicked in and we all had the sense that business is as usual and if anything we would teach our Lux counterparts a thing or two. And that was true. We truly missed Jim and wondered what was next, but we had great leadership in place that was brave enough to do what was right for Oakley. We also put in place the Oakley 5 that was greatly praised and respected by Luxottica. Sure there were conflicts and territorial challenges, but we were fortunate that Lux had a great CEO in place at the time that loved the essence of Oakley and protected our autonomy.

Still you could sense the challenges. Lux would push, ask questions, debate and even laugh about the amazing ways we cultivated Oakley. They thought the many nuances we did for driving authenticity were a waste of time. Nonetheless, the Lux CEO had our back and we would work through our conflicts. Unfortunately the CEO, Andrea Guerra, had disagreements about business strategy with the the Lux founder, Leo DelVechio, and resigned. Aligned with your observation of around 2015 this is when the bigger challenges came. Mind you I have departed at this point so my comments are from outside the bunker.

DelVechio is an industrialist. From my view of his actions, brand soul and culture don't mean much to him. Instead owning the vertical integration from design to manufacturing to owned retail surpasses brand power. If you control all vertical entities then you can control consumer buying behaviors. In having a portfolio strategy with multiple brands you can now turn them off and on as you wish. You also don't have to worry as much when a brand is cold as long as you have another one that is hot. Own house brands like Oakley and Ray Ban, but also use your vertical dominance to license other brands. When you license other brands, especially if they are hot, you draft off their marketing horsepower and have to invest very little marketing to bring products to market. Smart business and one I can't debate.

In the end, I optimistic that Oakley will find its way in the new Luxottica vision. Oakley was once the most brave, innovative and disruptive brands in the sport and lifestyle segment. It will always survive. Maybe not with the amazing culture and vibe it had when at its best, but it will find its way and survive. It's first step is to get back to making brave, innovative, disruptive, performance designs and stop making Holbrook, Frogskin, Wayfarer variations

Scott.

Very good read Scott! Thank you

Just got my collector's pack today.

http://opal.fr/en/product-star-wars/

Partnership between Opal and Parasite Eyewear, the french eyewear creator compagny.

Tentez de gagner une lunettes Star Wars. Pour cela, rendez-vous sur notre page Facebook 😉 bonne chance ! 🍀

Une publication partagée par Opal (@opal_lunettes) le 20 Avril 2017 à 1h47 PDT

Beautiful! Congrats! I was contemplating getting one. How much do they retail for?

Wow! Nice pick up, Francois!

Beautiful! Congrats! I was contemplating getting one. How much do they retail for? - Oak

850 euros.
Which is pretty affordable compared to how rare they are and the collector potential.