It’s the 50th anniversary of the sports lifestyle brand this year, Google and Pinterest searches are up 35% and 27% respectively, and two pairs of vintage ‘Over the Top’ sunglasses sold for a combined $8,122.40 on eBay.
In the last few months alone, headline news of the brand’s collaboration with Meta on the HSTN AI-powered smart glasses, its recruitment of Travis Scott as Chief Visionary Officer, the continuation of partnerships with cult brands Piet and SATISFY, and the launch of grass roots initiatives with IoDF (Institute of Digital Fashion) have made Oakley a regular presence on our feeds.
But how much of Oakley’s current success is the result of deliberate brand action and how much is driven by a consumer and cultural climate ready to embrace it? Or is it simply the perfect storm of both? This article explores those questions and what they mean for the brand’s future.
There are also bigger questions.
Oakley might look like its back, but is it building a legitimate future or just riding a wave of nostalgia, collabs and cultural tailwinds?
As Brian Takumi, VP of Brand Soul at Oakley asks, “Fifty years from now, do we want to be talking about what Oakley did in 2025? If we're still talking about what the brand did in the 80s and 90s and there's nothing to talk about then we haven't done our job to evolve the brand.”
To investigate, we looked at social analytics from HypeAuditor, the Media Impact Value (MIV) of Oakley partnerships provided by Launchmetrics, conducted our own thematic analysis of Oakley’s active advertising using Meta’s Ad Library, as well as a sentiment analysis in response to the Meta collaboration on Reddit.
Oakley Brand Activity
Oakley was an undisputed icon of the 90s, revered for its futuristic styles like the M-Frame (1989), X-Metal Romeo, Eye Jacket (1994) and Trenchcoat (1999) worn by icons like Greg Le Mond, Robin Williams and Michael Jordan.
But following an IPO in 1995, and the later acquisition from luxury eyewear group EssilorLuxottica in 2007, the visionary founder James Jannard departed and the brand started to slide: commercial viability was prioritised over niche appeal, and some fans complained that quality was compromised as manufacturing moved away from the US.
But since then, the brand has been on a difficult journey to re-establish itself as both a cultural and commercial powerhouse. A combination of archive revivals, creative collaborations, ambassadorships and a seemingly significant marketing spend is starting to have an impact at street level.
Let's take a look...
Act I: Archive Revivals
Firstly, Oakley has been driving heat by actively revisiting its archive and re-issuing some of its biggest hit products.
As part of its 50th anniversary “Artifacts From the Future” collection, the brand brought back cult favorites like the Eye Jacket and M-Frame (“Mumbo”), alongside newer interpretations of its 1984 Eye Shade. These designs—already revered by collectors—are now being introduced to new audiences through collaborations with directional labels like SATISFY (Eye Jacket) and Daily Paper (Gascan), helping Oakley replant its legacy in contemporary culture.
Take the Over the Top: a radical silhouette made famous by sprinter Ato Boldon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Oakley recently reissued the model in collaboration with Brazilian label P_Andrade, debuting it at Paris Fashion Week. Two vintage pairs of Over the Top sold on eBay in March for a combined $8,122.49, a staggering 14,849% above the brand’s average resale price over the past year.
Act II: Creative Partnerships
In 2022, Oakley appointed Kyle Ng (Founder of LA label BrainDead) as head of ‘Factory Team’, a new experimental subdivision dedicated to apparel and footwear. Ng quickly introduced sought after footwear models first introduced in the early 2000s.
The Factory Team project remains a small and highly dedicated to a group of early adopting customers (the Instagram page has 63K followers at time of writing) distributing its footwear to tier 1 boutiques like END. in London and Voo Store in Berlin. However, it is unclear whether this top down approach popularised by the sportswear incumbents is having the halo effect through to the mainstream. At the time of writing, the brand’s Chopsaw Mule and FT Flesh Sandal are on sale at several locations.
That’s where Travis Scott comes in.
The artist’s appointment as the brand’s first-ever Chief Visionary Officer as part of a multi-year creative partnership hit the headlines this month and will see him shape Oakley's future across eyewear, apparel, and broader creative projects. The brand will be hoping that a figure like Scott can translate the creative experimentation of the Factory Team project to a more mainstream group of customers, starting with his 59.6m followers on Instagram.
But if Oakley wants to build lasting momentum, it may need to shift its focus from borrowed influence to homegrown creativity. Recent in-house releases like the Plantaris, an original, futuristic frame, have been met with strong community response. To win long-term, Oakley needs more of that: bold, brand-native design that doesn’t rely on co-signs to matter.
Act III: Marketing Muscle
Walking around London, tube stations are awash with Oakley ads. Our LinkedIN feeds are full of Meta commentary, and every major youth publication is featuring Oakley sponsored content. This is the very reason this piece exists.
We analysed Oakley’s Meta Ad Library and found that 48% of their active ads were published in June this year, pointing towards a high intensity marketing push as part of the brand’s 50th year anniversary.
What’s more interesting, though, is what brand narratives Oakley is choosing to promote. We searched all 42 of the brand’s current adverts and used AI to organise them into themes to expose the narratives Oakely might be prioritising.
The results are interesting, with 36% of ads linked to the future (new products, collections, Meta AI smart glasses). 24% lifestyle, 17% customisation, 14% heritage and 10% prescriptions
Oakley’s positioning as a brand that’s living in the future is perhaps a recognition of its need to separate itself from its past and lay the foundations for a differentiated future.
Should consumer interest cool for its archival re-releases its paramount that the brand prioritises new customer acquisition. Marketing new collections like ‘Artifacts from the Future’ and models like the Lateralis is how Oakley will move forward.
But it’s also a risk. The AI-powered Oakley Meta HSTN glasses that launched last month to much industry buzz, have so far been met with mixed reviews from customers: when we analysed 50+ Reddit comments on the new glasses (scoring each from 1 to 10 based on tone and purchase intent), the result was a disappointing 3.7, with many commenting on the bulky design and unclear use case.
Oakley’s Instagram tells a similar story: the brand is doubling down on the future. A text analysis of its YTD captions shows “future,” “oakleymeta,” and “new” ranking among the most frequently used words far outpacing heritage references or even core performance language. It’s seems a strategic decision to frame Oakley as forward-leaning and innovation-led, not simply a nostalgic revival. Whether it’s AI-powered eyewear or speculative collections like Artifacts from the Future, the platform’s language reinforces Oakley’s desire to be seen as a brand looking ahead.
Act IV: Ambassadors
One area Oakley continues to win in, however, is ambassadors. During the 2000s, Oakley found a following amongst film stars like Tom Cruise and Wesley Snipes as high profile appearances in films like 'Blade II' helped market Oakley in a visually powerful way as the cutting edge equipment brand for sports enthusiasts.
Skip to today, and Oakley have managed to sustain their impressive Media Impact Value from H1 2024 ($88.1M) to H1 2025 ($91.1M) through standout partnerships with athletes like Dewald Brevis ($3.2M MIV), Chase Sexton ($2.4M) and Kylian Mbappe ($1.5M) (LaunchMetrics).
Could this be the answer to further growth? Or is it a costly equity grab?
One way Oakley will win is by focusing less on what can be achieved with paid spend (Meta ad spend is the most expensive it’s ever been, with CPC costing around $0.30 on average), and more on finding the next Dennis Rodman ‘Double Team’ (1997) or Brad Pitt ‘Fight Club’ (1999) moment, in which Oakley products were brought to life through iconic moments in culture.
But what if it wasn’t all Oakley? Let’s now consider the external forces at play.
Aside from Oakley’s historic brand power, legendary product archive and ongoing talent partnerships, the idea that the brand’s current run can be attributed entirely to intentional brand action can be challenged for a couple of reasons.
Act V: Group Growth
Firstly, Oakley is benefitting from the ongoing success of its parent company, EssilorLuxottica.
The company reported consolidated revenue of €6.85 billion for the first quarter of 2025, reflecting an 8.1% year-on-year increase at current exchange rates; and, while Oakley doesn’t disclose financials, S&P Global quotes the brand’s contribution as being 5% of EL's sales in 2023, putting its revenues for 2024 in the region of €1.3 billion.
But as the luxury slowdown has shown, that success is far from guaranteed over the long-term. And what impact might this have on Oakley’s marketing budget after its 50th year anniversary comes to a close?
Act VI: Performance Sports Boom
Oakley’s resurgence hasn’t happened in a vacuum. One of the strongest tailwinds behind the brand’s current momentum is the broader cultural and commercial boom in performance sportswear.
According to ExplodingTopics, searches for “running glasses” have surged 88.9% over the past two years, a jump that reflects the mainstreaming of endurance sports, outdoor training, and high-performance gear as everyday style. By contrast, searches for Oakley specifically are up just 21.2% over the same period. That disparity tells us something important: the category is growing faster, iso perhaps Oakley is benefiting from the trend rather than driving it.
As consumers shift from streetwear maximalism to a new performance-led aesthetic, Oakley’s technical legacy suddenly feels more relevant than ever. Function-forward design, aerodynamic silhouettes, and sports science optics no longer feel niche, but rather a solidified part of fashion.
This cultural realignment has helped push Oakley back into the spotlight, whether or not the brand intended it. The challenge now is to translate this momentum into brand-led equity. Because while performance might be the trend today, what happens when the spotlight moves again?
Act VII: Trend Cycles
Oakley were instrumental in defining a Y2K and ‘Office grunge’ aesthetic that is now back in fashion: searches for “Y2K sunglasses” are up 11% past year and 17% past year according to GoogleTrends, and on Pinterest (Gen Z’s primary destination for visual inspiration) searches for Oakley have increased 27% YTD.
That’s not all good news. Where Oakley used to set trends in the 1990s, today it’s surfing them.
Speaking on Oakley’s avant-garde style, Brian Takumi, Oakley’s Vice President of Brand Soul, predicted this in 2023: “Unfortunately for Oakley, it took 20 years for the world to catch-up to what we were doing in 1998, but trends run in around 20 year cycles. It took that long for people to say ‘wow, this stuff was pretty revolutionary."
Oakley were so ahead of the curve that they cast their net into the future. But what happens when the wind changes?
As Takumi implies, today, Oakley needs to begin this process all over again. Like brands like Von Dutch and Ed Hardy that have surfaced in response to microtrends, Oakley’s revival is being fueled, in part, by trends outside, not inside, of its control.
If longer term growth is the aim, going forward it’ll need to invest in bold statements that set a precedent, not mimic it.
FUTURE: What next for Oakley?
Oakley is, without doubt, one of the most iconic brands in eyewear history. Today, it looks like it’s thriving: sold-out collaborations, an archive that still commands attention, headline partnerships with Meta and Travis Scott, and ambassadors like Kylian Mbappé generating real media value.
But peel back the layers, and a more complex picture emerges. Much of Oakley’s current momentum has been powered by partners, brands like SATISFY, figures like Travis Scott, platforms like Meta. It’s working, for now. But as Brian Takumi, Oakley’s VP of Brand Soul, puts it: “If we’re still talking about what the brand did in the 80s and 90s… then we haven’t done our job to evolve it.”
That’s the tension. Oakley’s comeback is credible, but not yet self-sustaining. Its success today is borrowed: from the cultural equity of others, from macrotrends like the performance boom and Y2K nostalgia, from the marketing muscle of EssilorLuxottica. None of that guarantees relevance five years from now.
What Oakley does have, though, is something rare in the market: a distinct and consistent futurist identity. While most brands are preoccupied with heritage, minimalism, or lifestyle, Oakley’s bold visual language—alien curves, cyber silhouettes, aggressive frames—stands almost alone. Its commitment to designing the future rather than mimicking the present is risky, but refreshing. And if nurtured correctly, it could become Oakley’s long-term competitive edge.
To win long-term, Oakley needs to shift from remixing its past to inventing its future. That means: 1) designing products that set the tone rather than respond to trend cycles. 2) Investing in in-house creative capacity, not just co-signs. 3) Owning a point of view that doesn’t rely on hype, nostalgia, or algorithms to catch fire.
Oakley can win in the future. But it will have to do it by itself, not through others.