So, I just got my hands on the Gascans in Grape/Grey. Why are they part of the Stretchline? I thought Oakley had to be spelled out for them to be part of that collection. Oh yeah, one other question: Is the Fandango an inside joke that I missed?

Stretchline was originally conceived for the skate and surf crowd which then also included oddities like the Grape GC and Violet Riddles. When the Grape GCs first appeared in stores (prior to being put on oakley.com), they were simply part of the GC lineup. When it later appeared on Oakley.com, it was only found under the Stretchline collection part of the site, which is where the classification into the Stretchline group comes from.

Yes, Fandango is an inside joke for really, really bad Oakley fakes. Well, not fakes that are based off of current Oakley designs (eg. fakes of Gascans). They're fakes that are complete "original" and tackey, but they'll stick the logo on it.

Word. That must have been during my Oakley "dark ages" when I was living in the wilds of Utah without a laptop. Curses!

Oh yeah, why are the Eyepatches and Twitches considered "Frogskins" while the Stretchline, and "Square O" when not? Please don't answer "Because they have a Square O now." I like to think I'm not that much of a moron...

Dann is the best person to answer this in detail, but it's probably due to the period where Oakley had an identity crisis with their classification system and it was difficult to classify each new release because of that.

If I say something about no earsocks or nosebombs, would I even be in the ballpark?

I remember that the Stretchline collection was like buried in their site too. You had click thru 'surf apparel', click on like a rash guard shirt in order for the site to suggest a sunglass product from Stretchline collection.

There was a simplerway to access the stretchline page. You just had to add "/surf" at the end of the oakley website main page URL.

But I had the feeling to go in a secret part of the site hahaha

There's a million hidden pieces of knowledge that only exist in our minds at this point. My Phd thesis is actually addressing this problem in some context. My goal was to flesh out the wiki and document them all, but these questions help fuel that motivation.

Yes like said, the Grape Gascans and Violet Riddles, which not having the stretch logo, were subject to the same sales requirements (only surf/skate shops) as the Stretchline.

As for the Square O/Frogskins classifications, they are all Frogskins, but some also fall under the Square O, and Ellipse O sub-catagories.

One of the confusing thing while following the Oakley History, is trying to makes heads or tales of all the classifications. Frogskins and Jackets were for a while fairly distinct. Frogs lacked Unobtainium and were a lot cheaper, while Jackets had ear socks, nose bombs, and often took a different design route. Then the XX's came out and due to the naming convention, where added to the Frogskins. The Bottlecap has no ear socks, yet was added to the Jackets (technically the catagories were getting muddled at this point anyway.) Then we have the Dartboard, which looks more like a Zero class, but the website listed them initially as a Frogskins, but the box states them as a Jacket.

At around that point, the two catagories weren't really mentioned, and it simply became O Matter. This posed a problem for the future models, since I had to either start guessing, or figure out how to classify them. I guessed for a bit, but then made an O Matter group. This was fine for a while, but then the Acetate frames came out. The oakley website still listed them in the O Matter group. I decided to break them out, but after that the Riddles were all by their lonesome and it seemed silly to create a group for one model. I found out that the Halo's were also Acetate, but were assigned to the Frogskins group, so I abandoned that and put the Riddles into the Frogskins.

Then the Stretchline comes out. I create a new group for that, but keep the Wardens in the Wires. Here starts the conflict between two competing groups. The stretchline built up over time, and the designs were unique enough to not cause much of a confusion between Frogskins and Jackets, and thus warrant their own group. Then the Stretchline group was canceled, and turned to Square O. I did at this point receive word from someone at Oakley, who gave me the official classification, and I found out that Frogskins and Jackets were still being used behind the scenes and that the Square O models were for the most part all Frogskins. I moved the old stretchline pairs into the Frogskins, but kept the Square O in their own area.

In truth, I should move those to Frogskins as well, but I just haven't gotten to it yet.

I feel left out. How do I get someone at Oakley to call me? Now I'm all lonely...

How about keeping the rating systems up to the point that Luxottica came in and everything went screwy? After that, if someone wants to find a particular pair of glasses, they can hit ctrl+f.

You spend 4 and a half year building and maintaining an Oakley site. Then you get a call, but it's usually a lawyer annoyed that you're reposting images.

I had thought about making the site up to Lux, but whatever, until things get really bad, I may as well continue.

I loved the explanations and the rationals behind the choices, that post could be in the wiki in full.

As for the Luxotica, it would be pretty hard, since some designs take longer from conception to finished product and it would not seem fair to seperate the frames from when Lux came into play.

I'd say the increase in Acetate frames (ie: Made in China), might be a hint.

All I know is that the Stretchline is what took an already cool-looking eyewear display and made it even more bad ass.

Thank you, Stretchline!



~Yukio

Dann, the sad part is that I enjoy my Accetate frames.

And even worse, thanks to this thread, I had a dream, last night, about fighting with someone over what Stretchline really is or was. Yeah, that's what I dream about at night.

The Stretchline was the last big thing from Oakley that really catched me - my collection shrunk to a X-Metal section, my Crosshair section and the Stretchline stuff and I'm still trying to complete the whole lineup. I don'T know what is going to happen once I have every Stretchline piece (which still should take a while because I can't finde the Razorblades and I need another piece of every Warden with the alternative stem-design).

However - I just wanted say: Stretchline is awesome!