Design Team/Luxottica

[dayummJOHN]

This is beginning to get very upsetting...
I've been collecting oakleys for about 10 years now...
The dedication and time you could see go into the frames and design back in the days...
was stunning. You can just tell how much effort and time was put into a single frame design.
The lines and curves of the gascan... are just... well.. perfect. The same for the eyepatch 1 i think...
They just have these rugged..distinct lines...molded into the stem... not just some clunk of flat plastic running down your head.
They're just...pieces of art really.
The same with the metals line. Not just that... but the naming of the frames all worked together to some extent...
"Gascan" "Oil-Rig" "Oil-Drum" etc..

What the hell is going on now? "Batwolf" "Garage Rock" BIG F*ckng TACO???
Are you kidding me? And the effort put into these frames... almost none at this point.
They're all mediocre frames you can easily find anywhere else. They're just slapping the O on anything now.
The LE's are not quite what they were either...

I think someone has to have the time and dedication to lead the O to where it was back in the day...
Luxottica quite frankly isn't cutting it. Oakley...is the Apple of Sunglasses.
When Steve was running the operation... everything had the owners vision... he stuck his hands in everything...
and apple products just have this touch to them... you can see and feel how much time and effort was put into the design
when you use one... Now that he's gone... even with the iPhone 5,new ipods, Retina MacBook Pro... it's quite a bit different... Not quite as much thought into the "new" product as before.
I feel this is the same issue Oakleys been having...
And i don't think much is going to get better unless they have ONE person driving the whole train
with the time and dedication to the company that Jim had...

 

[copilot]

We want jim!!!

We want jim!!!

We want jim!!!

...

 

[Peeza21]

We want jim!!!

We want jim!!!

We want jim!!!

...

All together now!!!

WE WANT JIM!!!!

 

[BriP]

i second that motion. both oakley and apple need some new inspiration.

 

[Rustpot]

There was that great article posted in the X Metals section from Wired when the X Metal line was being launched. You could tell that profit wasn't the biggest thing on Jim's mind. He wanted domination, but he wanted to do it while breaking the mold and making people freak.

Aside from switchlock and some new photochromic lenses what has Oakley innovated since 2007? Revise, rehash, clumsy, disjointed, 2.0, 3.0, recycle names.

Not that Jim didn't recycle names and styles, but if you look at a Dispatch and a Dispatch II you see the similarity. You look at an Eye Jacket and an Eye Jacket 2.0 they're not even the same pair.

And sadly people will pay just as much for cookie cutter, phoned-in designs now that the brand is well established. There is still an Oakley flair, but the driving force to create sculpted art for your face is gone.

 

[nlgrav182]

i second that motion. both oakley and apple need some new inspiration.

Apple has gone as far as they can go. They will continue to update products with the latest in features, hardware, and software, but they'll never have someone like Steve to tell the entire planet that there is a beautiful Apple product that everyone needs.

Oakley, on the other hand, has plenty of room to go, and plenty of different directions. They can explore different materials, shapes, inspirations, etc. They can expand model lines, limit others, more small limited runs, etc. They cannot do this being run by a monolithic company like Lux. Someone needs to use XYZ optics in frames that are designed with the same spirit and enthusiasm that Oakley had designing X-Metals, OTT's, etc.

I generally don't care for anything that's come out after 2009, JS^2 being the exception.

 

[BriP]

GUYS i have an idea. we got lots of graphic artists on here. lets do that crowdsourced design ****. car forums do it with usually great success...

Oakleys, DESIGNED by the enthusiasts. come on. we can do a few pairs/variants.

LETS DO IT. whos with me.

 

[Oakle y]

GUYS i have an idea. we got lots of graphic artists on here. lets do that crowdsourced design ****. car forums do it with usually great success...

Oakleys, DESIGNED by the enthusiasts. come on. we can do a few pairs/variants.

LETS DO IT. whos with me.

Great idea BriP. Designed by the people for the people.

Something new, Something different, Something to redefine Oakley.

 

[Razerwire]

I was thinking about this the other night. What if Jim came back into the shades business and started a company called Doakley? LOL

Would people jump ship from Oakley for Doakley? LOL

Seriously though, Oakley is near dead for me after discontinuing X-Metals.

 

[alcapon1]

I am a industrial graphic designer and I agree 100%. I was originally inspired by Oakley to make this my job. Examine the mock up drawings for these new designs. Oh, wait there is none hence no inspiration or driving force behind their creations. I honestly can do better, I really could, down hill for sure. Holbrook, Gascan, Fuel Cell, Eypatch, Jupiter, are pretty good but the junk is already coming and X metals are going. YA, let dump our flag ship and make crap in China. Shame, shame