Exclusive: Oakley Elite Launch

Their latest top-secret limited-edition collection, Elite, is the culmination of Oakley’s ‘best of the best’ in design and cutting edge technology

When I arrived in California our trip started in the conspicuous Oakley manner – with a convoy of four black Hummers to take the international media scrum of fashion editors to Oakley Headquarters in Orange County.

Oakley HQ looks like an enormous futuristic military ‘bunker’ perched at the top of a hill, with a fully functioning Russian tank with Oakley badging in the foreground.

Oakley is proud of their ‘design bunker’. From here the company has churned out 540 worldwide patents across multiple categories including eyewear, time-pieces, apparel, etc.

On our tour of Oakley’s Metropolis style headquarters we were taken through the fully automated Rx lens assembly plant which was built using automotive industry technology. We also saw Oakley’s ballistics and puncture testing and a special custom graphics room featuring 4D resin prototype copiers.

Deep in the bunker’s catacombs are research labs with equipment and facilities not unlike Q’s headquarters from James Bond. Products in development here are all top secret from eyewear, timepieces, apparel, luggage and specialty items for U.S. Special Forces, NASCAR and others.

Most areas were off-limits to photography, specifically their manufacturing, research labs and design floor. Aside from those who work in these areas, other Oakley employees don’t have access to “where the magic happens”.

California is a hub of manufacturing. There are 131 manufacturers of products based here however Oakley is one of the only company’s in California to do most of its manufacturing onsite.

Oakley HQ is the architectural brainchild of Oakley President Colin Baden. It includes an NBA basketball court (which has recently been acquired by the fashion design department, Oakley’s fastest growth category), a 400 seat amphitheatre and one of their best performing Oakley stores in the U.S., with warranties and repairs done on site. Here, the concept of ‘boys and their toys’ is a way of life. At HQ, there’s also a bike ‘pump’ track, electric remote control cars, a helicopter pad and, of course, the tank!

Athletic Appeal

Oakley has endorsed 1500 athletes worldwide and 50 ex-sponsored athletes are now Oakley sports managers. These retired athletes work as sport talent scouts after they receive Oakley product knowledge and management skill training. Whilst their passion lies with the more rebellious sports, such as X games, these managers understand the need to attract trend influencers from the mainstream sports such as golf and tennis to influence and appeal to the mainstream.

Elite Driven by Design

Their latest top-secret limited-edition collection, Elite, is the culmination of Oakley’s ‘best of the best’ in design and cutting edge technology. What separates Oakley from the competition “is not a matter of opinion, but of science.”

Oakley is both design and personality driven. The founder, Jim Jannard was an amazing visionary who literally founded the performance eyewear category back in the 1980s. The current president, Colin Baden began his career with Oakley when his architectural designs were commissioned for Jannard’s dream home. Since then he has risen through the ranks from Director of Design to VP of Design within a year, then to President in 1999 before taking on the role of CEO in August this year.

With a designer at the helm, Oakley will continue to lead in its creativity rather than purely focusing on the commercial implications of their research.

Colin calls himself the “head mad scientist” and doesn’t believe in mission statements. Instead he has created several brand pillars which he claims “change every second week” but these guide Oakley to “wrap invention in art”.

Ultimate Protection

Colin Baden was incredibly passionate and hands-on during our tour. He personally demonstrated many of their eyewear tests for the media:

• Refractive Power Test: tests how lenses change the shape of images – where he put various competitor frames on a refractive chart to compare visual clarity.
• Prism Test: which demonstrated how if this is not done correctly, you get prism headaches from making the eyes work hard at correcting the data to brain.
• Mass Impact Test: which tests a heavy material with a slow impact – testing the frame’s ability to remain intact, whereby the lens doesn’t break and stays in place.
• High Velocity Impact Test: taking a small mass where they used a lead pellet with a fast impact, such as gravel flying up from the road when cycling.

Oakley considers their eyewear as ‘sunscreen for the eye’ – their protection is inherent in the glass instead of coatings that can be scratched. They rely on a nine base curve for maximum protection for peripheral vision.

New Collection, New Icon

The Oakley ‘O’ icon has undergone numerous transformations over its history and now, at the Elite release, Oakley also unveiled their newly faceted ‘O’ which will be the marque on all their premium products.

About three and half years in the making, the Elite collection is the final legacy of Jannard’s manic pursuit of excellence and for pushing scientific boundaries.

The collection’s separate categories of shoes, watches and three sunglasses share a common theme through the use of atypical materials, specifically carbon fibre. In-house competitiveness between Oakley’s design teams has pushed the design envelope to produce Elite.

In the past something like what they created here may not have made it to production stage. The Elite collection represents Oakley’s entire philosophy to date – bridging the gap between their ideas and what isn’t yet available in the market.

Sharon Smith is mivision’s fashion writer. Her eyewear columns in Australia and New Zealand have become a ‘must-read’ for both fashion-forward optical retailers and fashion editors.