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Best branded sunglasses to wear?

aziatiklover said:
Right so you agree then. Anything any branded made in Italy get my money for sure. China can keep their crap even if it was real Prada. A year or so ago I saw some Burberry that I liked at Sunglass Hut, but big turn off that it was Made in China.
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Prada are produced by ... you guess it ... Luxottica
Burberry ? produced by Luxottica (unless of course they are fake)

the mentioned before brands
Oakley ? brand owned by Luxottica
Ray Ban ? brand owned by Luxottica
Oliver peoples ? brand owned by Luxottica

Persol ? owned by Luxottica
Armani,Bulgari,Chanel, D&G,Michael Kors,DKNY, Miu Miu,Ralph Lauren, Versace, Tory Burch,Tiffany&Co ? all produced by Luxottica

It's quite the feat to avoid them in regards to eyewear ;)

The most hilarious thing is that their biggest world wide competitor is Safilo... another Italian company which is perhaps located away 100 km

Safilo produces the eyewear of the following brands:
Dior, Gucci, Hugo Boss,Marc Jacobs, Celine,Hilfiger, Pierre Cardin, Carrera,Banana Republic, J.lo, Fossil,Kate Spade, JImmy Choo, Fendi, Alexander Mc Queen,Polaroid


Avoiding the two italians companies can difficult when going for normal eyewear but it's ridiculous with sunglasses.
Luckily there is no need to avoid them since they both produce good products. IMHO Safilo is better in terms of quality.
 
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Oakley and Maui Jim still have a lot of pull and unlike the other brands they still design in house and run independent of the other Luxottica properties.
 
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MacNut said:
Oakley and Maui Jim still have a lot of pull and unlike the other brands they still design in house and run independent of the other Luxottica properties.
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as independet as you can be when you are owned 100% by another company ;)

of course they still are designed inhouse... it's an Luxottica "house brand" now
Having a own design department for each different brand makes sense.

With the licensed fashion brands it very often depends on the contracts: sometimes they are designed by designers from the brand with support from the producer, sometimes luxottica/safilo designs them, sometimes hired external eyewear designers etc.

For US based eyewear conglomerates you have Marchon(Lacoste,Lagerfeld, Calvin Kline, Disney,G-Star Raw)

Another big one is yet again italian: Marcolin
http://us.marcolin.com/brands/

Maui Jim is still independent

Personally i'm wearing 2 independent german brands ("Hamburg *** Eyewear" and "FreudenHaus") for my normal glasses and a inhouse brand from Safilo as sunglasses because they are cheaper than an actual fashion brand and yet the same quality
i found this post which has a list of other independent brands:
http://www.styleforum.net/t/223200/sunglasses-not-owned-by-luxottica/60#post_7079986
later in that thread you can find out which fashion brands are made by which company
 
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takao said:
Prada are produced by ... you guess it ... Luxottica
Burberry ? produced by Luxottica (unless of course they are fake)

the mentioned before brands
Oakley ? brand owned by Luxottica
Ray Ban ? brand owned by Luxottica
Oliver peoples ? brand owned by Luxottica

Persol ? owned by Luxottica
Armani,Bulgari,Chanel, D&G,Michael Kors,DKNY, Miu Miu,Ralph Lauren, Versace, Tory Burch,Tiffany&Co ? all produced by Luxottica

It's quite the feat to avoid them in regards to eyewear ;)

The most hilarious thing is that their biggest world wide competitor is Safilo... another Italian company which is perhaps located away 100 km

Safilo produces the eyewear of the following brands:
Dior, Gucci, Hugo Boss,Marc Jacobs, Celine,Hilfiger, Pierre Cardin, Carrera,Banana Republic, J.lo, Fossil,Kate Spade, JImmy Choo, Fendi, Alexander Mc Queen,Polaroid


Avoiding the two italians companies can difficult when going for normal eyewear but it's ridiculous with sunglasses.
Luckily there is no need to avoid them since they both produce good products. IMHO Safilo is better in terms of quality.
Click to expand...

Interesting and informative post. Unfortunately, not terribly surprising.


Ro_Ro_Bear said:
This is a subjective question. Cool is not just related to the brand factor but how you wear the glasses and how you feel about your look when wearing them. I wore for 10 years a pair of Gucci aviator glasses (probably made by the same Italian company halux mentioned earlier). They were not great but the colour of the lens and shape of the glasses were just right for me.

Steve McQueen (one of the coolest actors of all time) was famous for wearing Persol sunglasses but on me they just didn't feel right. Everybody talks about Wayfarer's but again they don't suit my face I feel (but I do have prescription sunglasses that look similar to them and they fit great, go figure). At the end I took Rayban Clubmaster's which in my opinion make me look cool.

One day even Google Glasses will be cool ;-)

BTW, prescription sunglasses is definitely the way to go. Expensive (just as with normal glasses) but makes a massive difference.
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Agree with you.

However, I do think on the matter of glasses, (and not just sunglasses) people should try to work out what looks well on the shape of face that they themselves have, rather than simply be a slave to branded advertising.
 
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Figured I'd just bump this thread since it contains relevant content :)

I just ordered (from Japan) some new parts for some of my Oakley X-Metals, new center piece gaskets, new rivets, fresh lenses and misc rubber parts. Refreshing my XX and Romeo 2.0 :cool:
 
This post reeks of that "Hieveryone" poster.

The "best branded sunglasses" are the ones that you feel impresses the most amount of total strangers and have them believe you have more money than you really have. Let's face it, the people who really know have first hand knowledge of the depth of materialism and vanity you actually possess and they are not impressed.

And the total strangers...they DO NOT care. So all you are doing is playing to a perception that you believe other people have of you.

But...the best sunglasses are the ones you actually use and ones that actually protect your eyes. Regardless of brand.
 
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BernyMac said:
But...the best sunglasses are the ones you actually use and ones that actually protect your eyes. Regardless of brand.
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Yeah the original post was a bit sad, but there was some good followup content. I thought there was another Oakley related thread, but I found this one, figured it would work.
 
Polarized sunglasses to reduce glare is a must. The Ray Ban sunglasses I bought last year seem to look and fit right. I'm not tied to any particular brand though so long as the quality is good.
 
More Important that they block both UV and blue light. Dark non-blocking lenses enable the radiation to reach the retina through dilated pupils.
 
IMO sunglasses with glass vs plastic lenses are a bit nicer. That said, I agree with what most above have said. Luxottica owns the sunglass hut and basically every single brand in the store (so, almost every brand, period). The markup is insane and most people lose, sit on, or otherwise trash sunglasses.

That said, when you pay a bit more you tend to take better care of them. I have had a couple pairs for 5-6 years, and then I had a nice pair of polarized ray bans that were only 6 months old; the ocean decided it wanted them more!

If you are into US made stuff... my next pair pay be from this company. Randolph Engineering. They have some good looking styles and they are all made in the US.
 
hallux said:
Everything made in Italy is made by the same company, Luxottica. Even Oakleys are made by them now. Sunglass Hut, Sear Optical, Target Optical and even LENSCRAFTERS are owned by them. You would have a VERY difficult time finding any name-brand eyewear that ISN'T made by them.

I wear RockBros sunglasses. Picked up 2 "sets" each with a frame and 5 different lenses plus regular temples and an elastic strap for $15 each.
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If anyone is interested, here's the 60 minutes piece about Luxottica.
 
For me... I prefer Ray-Ban... their set of styles compliment me, I feel, the best. And besides... they were originally a local company to me, so I pretend I'm supporting my local economy.
 
Back before I needed full time prescription glasses, I swore by Serengeti's by Corning. Best contrast and shadow detail when riding in and out of shadows on a fast bike! My last pair had reading prescription at the bottom. Now I have Transitions/Varilux lenses. My frames are definitely not cool.
 
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