The Luxottica Overtake

While the merger is still taking place, it appears that the Luxottica Group will most likely be the new owners of Oakley. It was announced on June 21, 2007 that Luxottica had bought Oakley for $2.1 billion, meaning Jim Jannard, founder and majority stock owner stands to make 1.65 billion out of the deal. The reason that they are not the official owners yet is due to an ocean of legal hoops to jump through, mostly monopoly/anti-trust laws. Fortunately for Luxottica, they have been recently granted early termination of the U.S. anti-trust waiting period. More information can be found in the Luxottica press release here. As for the funding needed to be raised in order to purchase Oakley, it has all been accounted for through two groups of international banks. More about that can be found in another press release here.

It looks as though this is all going to happen and Luxottica will be able to add Oakley and their recent acquisition of Oliver People's to their brand offerings. There are many people that feel as though Luxottica will now be a complete company with the addition of Oakley to their roster. Luxottica had been lacking in the sports eye-wear segment of the market and have now just filled that void with the leader in it.

Personally, I feel as though Oakley has sold out. They have always made it a point to differentiate themselves from their competitors at all costs. As a matter of fact, Luxottica was their biggest competitor and rival up until they were bought out. I guess I can understand Jim Jannard selling the company considering that he is 57 years old and recently started a new video camera company called Red.

Hopefully Oakley can still stay the way that they are but now with a much bigger bank roll that will allow them to reseach and design newer and better technologies and eyewear. Hopefully nothing terrible happens. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Collection Photos

A lot of people think that collecting things is a waste of time and money, but I feel like they haven't found something that they are truly passionate about. I am a very passionate person, so I have found several things to collect starting as a little kid collecting Hot Wheels cars and recently Disc Golf Discs, Puma Shoes and Oakley products. If you think my collections are off the wall, you will love this post since I will be showing you some collection photos of some inane Oakley collectors.

Here is a picture of my collection as of the beginning 2007:


Here it is after about 9 months minus a lot of apparel and shoes and such...also there is a watch on top and a bunch of other stuff.


For security reasons behind the policies of owning Oakley display cases, I have left the names of the owners of these collections anonymous. Take a look...they make my collection look like a joke. Each of the pics comes from a different collection as well.





Yeah, this Oakley thing might need to be classified as a clinical illness.

The Red Shift Line

Oakley has come out with an entire new line that is military-inspired called the Red Shift line. This is the logo for it in the middle of the picture with a pin next to it:


The tagline for the line is "Standard Issue for your personal revolution"


They have almost everything you could possibly want from bags, to shoes, to hats, to even sunglasses. The styling is based off of WWII military gear with Soviet-style graphics. Here is a picture of the bags:

These are the special release of Gascans that came out with this line, called the "Soviet Gascan" They come with the pin that is pictured at the top of this post.

For a list of all items and prices as well as information on women's items in the Red Shift line, check out the link on Oakley's website here

A New Artist Series and the Grab Bag

It is now October, and that means that a new Artist Series piece comes out. This time it is the Todd Francis Eyepatch. At the same price as the Art Chantry Hijinx of $160 USD, I would say that these are another must-have. Check out these amazing pictures thanks to Brent Haley (Bhaley2four) from the O-Review. On a side note, if any of the links from this blog are not accessible, I would recommend signing up with the O-Review here. If new member registration is closed, just send an e-mail here. Anyways, here they are.






Next, Oakley has just begun its "Grab Bag" promotion. In essence, whenever someone buys a pair of O-Matter frames (like Hijinx, Gascan, etc.) from an O-Store they have the option of getting a Grab Bag icon. The purchaser does not know what the icon is going to look like, and there are many different icons that they can recieve. As the supply of these icons runs out, Oakley will put out new variations. Here is a picture with a few examples of what you could recieve:


There are many many more and the program is ongoing, so there will be a lot more to check out. I have a feeling that this is going to be one series that no one is going to be able to collect all of.

Recent Purchases

Just a quick post here about some of my most recent purchases.

I just snagged a pair of Art Chantry Hijinx. These are a limited edition run recently released. They are part of the Artist Blocline series. They were a bit pricey for me at $160 retail, but I had to buy them in person. Here is a picture of my personal pair. I would definately say that these are going to be one of my few pairs that I have for display-only purposes.

Also, I picked up a pair of Crystal Blue/Black Iridium Fives 3.0 for $30 shipped from SteepAndCheap. Check that site out sometime, they tend to have killer discounts on Oakley products if you are lucky enough to catch them. Here they are.

Well, just wanted to post my two most recent pairs that I bought. I'm looking into a pair of Radar Path's with a path lense so if anyone has any feedback on them I would appreciate it.

My Obsession

To really get this blog going, I have decided to talk about how my own obsession with Oakley began and how I found the O-Review.

When I was in 5th grade, which was about 11 years ago, my friend Ben Schimizze (O-Review member Fezzik1071) and I (O-Review member OsmosisJones) would go to our local mall and pester the optician to try on the same pairs of Oakley sunglasses every single weekend. There was no way either of us ever would have enough money to actually buy a pair. Nevertheless, we still went almost every weekend to try them on.

Fast-forward to my seventh grade summer. I mowed lawns and did yard work the entire summer with the intent of saving up enough money to buy my first pair of Oakleys. After earning enough money, and then wasting it on useless things several times, I finally had enough money to buy a pair of sunglasses, but had no idea which pair I wanted since there were so many amazing pairs to choose from.

I finally narrowed it down to a pair of Minutes FMJ 5.56 w/Black iridium lenses. They were everything I wanted and more. I still have the original box and receipt from when I bought them. If I get a digital picture up of them, I'll make sure to post it.

Years passed and I eventually lost my first pair of sunglasses, but my passion remained and so I bought a new pair of SI E-Wire 2.1's which lasted me a few more years.

When those broke due to me sitting on them about 15 times, which was about 2 years ago, I decided to go out and find a new pair. I fell in love with Black Chrome/Black Iridium Why 8.2's which were just released at the time. I wanted to make sure that I never broke my sunglasses again, so I went online to find out which size case I needed to protect them. After about an hour or two of searching, I stumbled upon the O-Review. I joined the forum instantly and began posting my question about Vault sizes. Within about 5 minutes, someone posted that I needed an X-Metal Vault.

The timeliness of that response made me want to come back and learn as much as I could about Oakley. So I kept coming back, and now two years later I am a regular member of O-Review, and have purchased around 20 more pairs since then...not to mention loads of apparel, backpacks and accessories.

As for my first pair of sunglasses that sparked my obsession, well, I found them and will never lose them again.

Things to Come

Hello,

My name is Justin Jones and I have decided to start a blog about my favorite company, Oakley. I plan on talking about literally everything about this company including:

• Its recent acquisition by the Luxottica Group
  
• Personal reviews of products
• O-Review, an Oakley fan-site
• New Releases
• Oakley.com updates
• Recent personal purchases
• Photos of my personal collection and the collections of others
• Great purchasing locations and deals
  
• Anything else Oakley-related

I would love to hear from anyone else who is an Oakley fan, so please e-mail me with suggestions for my blog, or if you want to chat about everything and anything Oakley.