Which if any lenses are still made in the US?

[heelothere]

I'm looking into purchasing RadarLock with Polarized Prizm lenses. Is there a way to find out in which country each type of lens is made or does Oakley not release that type of information?

 

[O Bro]

My co worker worked in manufacturing at foothill and left a few months back, and he says they make most of the lenses there, but the boxes say assembled in USA because all the packaging comes from China.

 

[TheStig]

I don’t see the logic in that.
Oakley is dening them self the Made In the USA by using Chinese packaging.
Do you really believe any single US manufacturing facility would be able to produce the amount and variety of lenses Oakley requires?
No way.
I assume 90% of all lenses are made in China.
Only in China you can produce that amount of product and variety.
I have been to a mid size Chinese Facility with 95k Employees producing Cellphone parts.
Mostly Backcover. Hard to describe and never possible outside of China.

 

[O Bro]

I don’t see the logic in that.
Oakley is dening them self the Made In the USA by using Chinese packaging.
Do you really believe any single US manufacturing facility would be able to produce the amount and variety of lenses Oakley requires?
No way.
I assume 90% of all lenses are made in China.
Only in China you can produce that amount of product and variety.
I have been to a mid size Chinese Facility with 95k Employees producing Cellphone parts.
Mostly Backcover. Hard to describe and never possible outside of China.

Well maybe your right, but he was making lenses. So at least some of them are made in the USA. Maybe it's only lenses for OCP

 

[TheStig]

Well maybe your right, but he was making lenses. So at least some of them are made in the USA. Maybe it's only lenses for OCP

SI Lenses are most likely still be made in USA.
Same goes for SI Frames.

 

[Markman69]

I think it’s a small Fraction is made here, lenses and some frames but not all. Most o matter is probably elsewhere now, and I know anything with bits of metal is stamped “China” like rx frames , new wire frames anything like that

 

[KarlBlessing]

SI Lenses are most likely still be made in USA.
Same goes for SI Frames.

Doubt the frames are, especially if they're the same models of the typical consumer stock (ie: Flak 2.0 frames are gonna be made from the same source regardless if SI or not, just with different configuration, like forgoing the branding on the nose bridge).

The Prizm lens are still made in house, but far as frames moving forward would all be made by whichever single source Luxottica uses for all their brands.

I can see all the other parts mass produced, and then shipped to the US in a warehouse where they just piece together specific colorways.

 

[heelothere]

Doubt the frames are, especially if they're the same models of the typical consumer stock (ie: Flak 2.0 frames are gonna be made from the same source regardless if SI or not, just with different configuration, like forgoing the branding on the nose bridge).

The Prizm lens are still made in house, but far as frames moving forward would all be made by whichever single source Luxottica uses for all their brands.

I can see all the other parts mass produced, and then shipped to the US in a warehouse where they just piece together specific colorways.

When you say Prizm lenses are made in house. Do you mean all Prizm Polarized lenses are made in the US? That would seem like a significant portion of lenses.

 

[KarlBlessing]

When you say Prizm lenses are made in house. Do you mean all Prizm Polarized lenses are made in the US? That would seem like a significant portion of lenses.

Yes, and not as significant as you think compared to the standard ones they have (for all the brands Luxottica owns). Also most Prizm lens are not polarized especially if they're sports oriented. Their most common one Prizm Black which is often a default colorway on most might get much more mass produced elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if all their non-Prizm such as your typical grey base model was switched within months after Lux bought them.

New frames moving forward, definitely produced either in parts or whole in China or similar regions. But I would wonder if that actually has any real impact on the quality compared to trying to mass produce them on the same level anywhere else now days. (I wouldn't be nearly as much a fan of any of the new frames for their price if they didn't least have Prizm options to put in).

The Oakley portion isn't as significant when you consider Lux owns all these eyewear brands, and thru (unconfirmed) mentions of the cousin of the former joint CEO of Lux (Adil Mehboob-Khan), all those brands get their frames sourced by one company. And I wouldn't be surprised of that's also mostly true for all their non-Prizm standard lens.

 

[KarlBlessing]

Though come to think of it... Oakley Prizm came out in 2014, RayBan Chromance (from the description sounds like the same thing) came out in 2016. Possible that some of their more common offering such as Black and Sapphire may not be in-house, least not the way we're viewing In-house here.