- The One Obsession campaign
is a big part of Oakley's recent history.
It's the idea that many of us, most of us
have an obsession with our chosen sport.
But many of us have also got an obsession with Oakleys.
And one person who definitely
ticks that box is Brian Takumi.
Now he's worked here for 21 years.
He's the VP of Brand Creative
and he literally wrote the book on Oakley.
And he is gonna take us through his top seven coolest,
favorite, most important Oakleys of all time.
(intense music)
Right, I am looking forward to this.
We get to geek out on sunglasses.
In front of us, we've got a selection
of what you think are the most important
or your favorite Oakley glasses of all time.
Where are we gonna start?
- I think first thing we'll start with,
we have to start with the beginning of Oakley
and sunglasses and that's the Eyeshade.
I think definitely without this
you wouldn't have Oakley as it exists today
'cause it really put us down the path
of starting out with eyewear,
so obviously it's a very sports-specific piece
and a very niche piece.
At the same time, it's what kind of helped
put us on our path to making what we are today with eyewear.
I think the next thing as you look at
is obviously one of the next steps in that,
which was Razor Blade.
Because I think while this was
the piece that helped create Oakley,
Razor Blades was probably the piece
that really defined it to becoming,
leaving that niche world of just cycling
and snow sports and things like that,
and really going into this blend of sport performance
could become lifestyle eyewear that you could wear everyday.
So when you look at the Razor Blade,
that it transcended not just being used in sport,
but could be worn as an everyday piece.
And certainly over the years this shape,
the shape of the lens,
the iconic ear stems certainly became a mainstay
of helping to define sports eyewear.
- Yeah, and I mean, 'cause they were used in sport.
Greg LeMond wore a pair to win
the Tour de France, didn't he, in '89?
And then equally now, was it Pharrell Williams
had a nice diamond encrusted pair recently?
- Pharrell Williams has a nice diamond encrusted pair,
a solid gold pair that
he had a jeweler make, - A solid gold pair.
- so it's definitely found its place in pop culture,
history and the present day,
so certainly that is a definitely a defining moment for--
- And the customization on the Razor Blades,
that obviously wasn't available on the Eyeshades,
but the range of color and options, the start of it,
was that different between these two generations?
- Yeah, I think there was definitely,
Jim saw the opportunity here
with the removable and adjustable ear stems,
something he had on there
and then as they were continued working on Razor Blades,
not that it had the adjustable ear stems,
but certainly the fact that he was able to create
the earpiece kit that he was able to sell
and sell in multiple colors
and basically that you could customize 'em yourself.
So certainly was the first step
of seeing customization come to life
and I think that's why Razor Blades
were actually to become an iconic thing too,
because it allowed not just the performance
that you could do in it, but also the personal expression
of being able to pick and choose
your colors and shapes and things like that.
- All right, then what are we movin' onto next?
The third most important pair.
- I think just going down the timeline,
it probably starts with Mumbo M-Frame,
just because really this was the dawning
of that optically correct, the torque shape,
which more the shape of a sphere
versus the cylindrical shape here,
so also it was the starting of really
to think about the different lens shapes,
so this was a very square shape
back in the day of what we were doing
and then to start to think about
how do you really make this fit someone's face?
And so one of the things Jim always liked,
this idea about a three-point fit,
which helped define the shape of this,
where the hookier stems went away,
we went to the straight ear stems,
and that was really something about
really creating this idea
that it wouldn't hang off your face,
that as it would sit back here, it would sit
these two points right here and on your nose
and it had this idea about three-point fit,
which is also why when you look at these ear stems,
they have the hammer ear stem, had the trigger,
had the shape go this way,
whereas when you look at a M-Frame,
you'll see that the ear stem comes out and goes back,
and that was really to create
this idea of fit going right here
and holding onto your head versus hanging off your face.
- Okay, so where do we go next then?
From our M-Frame to...
- The next one for me is probably,
didn't have a huge mainstream place in history,
but it definitely had something
in helping drive where we are today
and it was actually, obviously for the cycling world,
you guys are very aware of Racing Jacket,
but it was this one we did for Atmos
as a co-lab in Australia, or in Japan,
and the thing with it was is
this actually glows in the dark,
all this color, the celeste color, the ear socks,
the celeste paint glows in the dark.
And really obviously at that time,
you're talking about, I want to say early, or 2010ish,
around there when we were doing that, or late 2000s.
Obviously trying to do something like this
on a piece of eyewear was not easy.
And so a lot of detail went into this too of
these had to be hand splattered,
on top of that, making sure the glow-in-the-dark paint
didn't rub off, at the same time the detail
that we put in of having the little A
actually stamped on to the bolts there.
This was really, I think, really helped us
set the tone for how we would
push the boundaries in deco again
and start really putting some stuff
that was interesting out there in the world
and take it to a whole new level.
- Yeah.
It's quite an iconic shape, I guess is well-known,
given that Geraint Thomas is single-handedly
still flying the flag. - He still wears that
to this day.
- Are you tempted to do a custom pair for him this year?
- Oh, it goes back and forth.
I think it's, you guys are cyclists,
so you know it's hard to, sometimes, as much as
we look to progress the shape, put new technology in,
for some guys it's hard to break away
with what they're comfortable with
after so many years of wearing it,
so we look at ways of how can we leverage the fact
that he's still wearing Racing Jacket
and think of ways like, okay, well,
instead of just using all the existing line,
is there opportunity to do stuff with him
or do something that's special for him,
or how do we breathe new life into Racing Jacket?
What's the opportunity there?
- Yeah, okay, cool.
Right, so from super limited edition collaboration then,
where are we heading next?
- So I think, as I said, this really set the tone for deco
and I think this was very limited
in its scale and visibility
'cause it was done as a limited edition for Japan.
I think one thing that really holds a special place
in my heart is what we just did at the Olympics in Korea,
and that was with the Harmony Fade.
And so we've always tried to have colors
for our athletes at any of the Olympic games,
whether that was summer or winter.
A couple of winter games we did the green,
at Rio we had this Green Fade,
but I think this was really special to me.
While my team has always worked on these,
I think this always holds a special place in my heart,
'cause I actually really did work on it myself.
So this is actually the original hand-painted prototype
of what we wanted to do, which very this 50-50,
yin and yang type of look, that painted in my garage,
just the concept piece that was done
to think about what we could do for Olympics.
- That'd be a cool country flag, wouldn't it?
The Harmony Fade. - Yeah, exactly, yeah.
- I think that would be, yeah, yeah.
- Become our flag.
- Yeah, there you go.
Okay, all right then,
so we've gone from limited edition color ways...
- So the next piece that I think for me
helped in shaping where the brand can go
was really this idea about Frogskins Lite.
I think at times, what you look at here,
that performance eyewear has to look performance.
And I think as you talk about different cyclists now,
especially you guys being from that world,
you know that all cyclists are not elite guys
who are racing in the Tour de France
and they're not all carbon fiber frame guys.
There's a huge breadth of guys that are out there
and guys ride carbon fiber bikes, guys ride aluminum,
guys ride steel, some people are using it, yes,
to do big coffee rides or things like that,
some people are riding just to go to the local market,
and so when you talk about, or just to get work and commute,
so when you talk about, what can Oakley be in that?
It shouldn't be if I'm gonna do cycling,
I have to wear something that looks like
I'm racing in the Tour de France.
It could be like, well, yeah, I ride a bike,
but there's times I just want go,
I want some of these performance features,
but I don't need to look like I'm racing.
- Cool.
All right, so there's one pair left then,
these ones, which are not gonna be familiar,
I think, to many of our viewers.
- Yes.
The silhouette, they are very similar
to what you would see in an M-Frame or a Radar,
but those are actually one of our military glasses
and I think while the military thing
at times can be a very touchy subject,
at the same time it's very meaningful as a brand,
and you think about as an eyewear company,
what does eyewear mean?
And I think I had the personal opportunity to find that out,
because one time we had visited
a hospital here in the States that
deals with our soldiers who come back from overseas
who've suffered some type of amputation.
And so one of the things was we went to visit them
and went into this soldier's room
and he had lost both of his arms in a IUD explosion
and we went in there and he knew we were from Oakley
and he said, "Thank you for what you guys do."
And you're sitting here talking to this guy
who sacrificed both his limbs.
And I said, "Well, thank you for what you did."
And so the next thing really probably
hugely changed my perspective on what we do, but he said,
"I don't think you understand what you guys do."
He's like, "I lost both my arms
"and they're gonna give me new arms,
"but if I didn't have my Oakleys on,
"I would have lost my eyesight
"and I would have never seen my baby daughter again."
And you think how powerful that is of we literally
could change someone's life with a pair of eyewear
and we think about what we do as like,
oh, do I look cool in this color
or things like that and those things that go on,
but literally of all the things
that you can have replaced on your body now,
the eye, vision is still the one thing you cannot replace,
and so when you think about, we hear things like,
oh this shape's not cool or this shape's cool
or I look cooler in these,
you could literally change someone's life
and especially in a world like cycling, where it's like,
we think about sunglasses as sun protection
from when the sun's out or can I see the road?
We don't think about how many people ride at night
or you start a ride before the sunset
or you're finishing your ride after,
or you start a ride before sunrise
and you end a ride after sunset
and you think like, oh, the sun's not out,
let me take my glasses off,
but you think about like, wow,
what if a rock got kicked up in the dark?
And you can't see that rock in the road now.
It's even harder to see when there's no light up.
And how easily a rock, whether that's you riding by yourself
or a car driving by or you're in a group of five guys
and someone kicks up a rock,
that could literally change your life.
- Yeah, it's the story that's not told very often actually
in relation to eyewear when cycling.
Like you say, it's easy to get obsessed with the performance
of the glasses themselves or the style of them,
but actually the fact that we should be wearing them
in the first place, to protect our eyes.
- And that's something Jim always talked about was
there's some ads that we have up here that talk about,
we don't make sunglasses, we make eye protection.
And really getting behind that
and that's why some of the stuff you guys see
with all the impact tests and things like that.
We may sit and go, well,
no one's ever gonna shoot a shotgun at me
or no one's ever gonna drop a four-pound weight on my face.
At the same time, it doesn't take
a four-pound weight to take your vision away.
It takes a rock this big just being kicked up
that could blind you forever.
So while the high-speed impact
or the high-mass impact may seem like overkill,
it's certainly gonna be less than that
that could actually take away your eyesight,
especially as you talk about cycling and being on the road
or any of those things, mountain biking.
I mean, let's put you down a trail
where dirt's just being kicked up in your face
and you're gonna take your glasses off
'cause there's no sun.
It's like, let me just stick my face behind a wheel
and have it throw stuff up at you.
It's like really about eye protection.
- Yeah.
Right, well, an important message to end on then,
after touching on shape, performance, style
and now actually protection.
Let us us know in the comments section down below
which of these are your favorites
and if in fact your favorite aren't in here.
Also please make sure you give it a big thumbs up,
thank Brian.
It's been super cool talking to you.
- Thank you.
- And if you wanna have a little look
around Foothill Ranch, Oakley's headquarters,
then we got another video on the channel already.
You can get through that just there.