My Favorite Oakley Piece

[El Chupa Cabra]

This one is going to be very selfish. This banner is my most prized piece in my Oakley collection. Yes, it's me... and now the story.

 

[El Chupa Cabra]

Right before the 2016 Summer Olympics, we were pushing the green fade that year, we had the Oakley sponsored athletes take photos wrapped in their country flag. There was a large group one and about 8 individual banners hanging in the Oakley lobby.

 

[El Chupa Cabra]

I looked at this one morning, when I was feeling particularly anti Lux, and thought there should be an Oakley athlete in that group. I had a reputation for being able to get away with a lot (more stories for those interested) and said to myself... "I'm taking a photo with the Oakley flag and were hanging it up with the rest and f&%K Luxottica. I went to see our CEO at the time, Colin, he was all in and willing to do it as well. I went to get out skull and cross bones flag, but some sorry ass lost it. No problem, I ordered a new one and made do with the side of a branded pop up tent I had for event. We scheduled the studio and the day of the shoot Colin thought about it and decided it might not be best for him to participate. I understood and went ahead on my own and just like a million dollar athlete we photoed my self in the buff with the Oakley banner.

 

[El Chupa Cabra]

We then printed on what must be a 2x30 foot banner. It took about 3 days to get this done. At this time there were only 3 people in the company who knew what I was doing. When the completed banner came I asked the crew to take down one of the banners and replace it with this - of which they had no idea what it was. I came in the following morning and there it was hanging in all it's glory... a big middle finger to Lux - you will not kill the mojo we built here. For about a day, no one really noticed and then within a matter of minutes the entire company was cheering and I was getting high fives from everyone, even a few Italians.
We left it up for the entire summer and it's now home with me.

 

[Medusa50]

Very personal. Hard to choose one piece as most valuable as they all have unique stories.

 

[El Chupa Cabra]

The story doesn't stop there... we decided to use this image on tons of internal branding to show we were not changing. The Oakley culture was alive and well.
I even wore it to the Halloween party that year... which I won one of my trophies for. We made beer labels with it, had all my interns use in on their final presentations (we used on almost every presentation) and finally... a punk rock show in Japan used it naming the event after me - long story with my history of Japan. So I share with all of you showing that there was a very active group keeping the culture alive at Oakley. Enjoy. Feel free to ask any questions and/or washi your eyes out if my epicness is too much for your eyes

 

[ZCForge]

Epic story, that’s all I can say...

 

[Chris169]

Killer story! Is there anyone left at Oakley who still embodies the old culture?

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[BenJammin’]

That’s pretty rad!

 

[El Chupa Cabra]

Killer story! Is there anyone left at Oakley who still embodies the old culture?

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I believe there are a few heads left there, but they're playing it safe and not pushing the boundaries.