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HOW OAKLEY POLARIZED outlet THE WORLD OF FASHION

Now might be the moment to talk about Oakley sunglasses — again.

The California label that was once reserved exclusively for professional athletes and bum bag-wearing dads, that then became a staple for teens in the 1990s (JNCO jeans, frosted tips, chokers, and wraparound Oakleys were an essential), is having a renaissance.

We’ve discussed their appearance in high fashion and the curious case of the Oakley watch. The label right now, though, is having another "moment," and a bizarrely persistent one too.

What was initially a revolutionary eyewear label that catered to the world of extreme sports (and also a manufacturer of motocross hand grips, I’ll have you know), has since become a ubiquitous staple in the realm of everyday fashion.

As is the way with modern brands that boast as extensive an archive as Oakley, the hype around the eyewear aficionados began to reappear in 2022 following a slew of reissues from its initial nineties heyday, most notably the SubZero revamp thirty years after its release.

Ask any Oakley head and they’ll tell you that the SubZero was the style that cemented the brand’s reputation as an eyewear leader. With its innovative Prizm Lens Technology and never-seen-before shield lens design, Oakley became the brand of the moment (within eyewear, anyway) and was being worn by some of the world’s most famous athletes.

That being the case, the fact the SubZero’s re-release kick-started Oakley’s recent revival shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, especially considering the then-burgeoning Y2K trend and the rise of gaudy-looking performance wear.

Still, the idea of wearing flashy mirrored sunglasses has surprising elasticity. Everything from down puffers and full-zip fleeces, to anoraks and tank tops are now being paired with Oakley, with all its wearers wanting to give the impression they can tie a Yosemite bowline, or that they own a pair of cargo shorts. It’s the real-world, fashion-as-function appeal.

Granted, it takes more than a few re-releases to see a brand’s popularity rise as much as Oakley’s, so it turned to what its peers had been doing: collaborations.

As everyone is now well-aware: collaborative releases are now commonplace in fashion. But good collaborative releases? Now they’re a little harder to come by.

What was once hailed as the unification of two (or more) creative minds coming together to create one or more products that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, has now become more of a logo-placing exercise between two labels. That’s not the case for Oakley, though.

From links with Palace and Satisfy, to Bodega and, most recently, the latest instalment of its ongoing Brain Dead collaboration, Oakley has lent some of its most epochal styles to some of the brands of today, and let them have their way.

It’s safe to say that Oakley has its stems in a myriad of subcultural eyewear pies, and to great acclaim. Perhaps the only perplexing thing about Oakley’s collaborative approach is its sheer persistence in terms of volume, although that’s not for you or I to worry about.

Oakley’s rise hasn’t just been in eyewear either. Collaborations with Satisfy and Foot Patrol have seen the Big O pop up on various items of apparel, while its Factory Team sub-line has been dropping footwear with brands like Brain Dead for some time now.

Take its Dead Flesh and Chop Saw silhouettes, for example, two styles conceptualized as Oakley Factory Team by Brain Dead.

In the same vein as its eyewear revival, when it comes to apparel and footwear, the process and direction has remained much the same: to make archival Oakley styles relevant again, either by design, storytelling, or both.

Thanks to its honest collaborative approach, an extensive archive, and a penchant for making some of the best eyewear in the game — plus ambassadors like Kylian Mbappe and Alexia Puttelas — the rise of Oakley is well and truly underway.

In fact, you could say we’re in the epicentre of an Oakley renaissance, but through a tinted (sometimes mirrored, sometimes collaborative) lens.