In 2007, Luxottica, an Italian eyewear giant, acquired Oakley for over two billion dollars. The deal ended decades of rivalry between Ray-Ban and Oakley, two of the most recognized sunglasses brands in the world, and brought them under a single corporate roof. For years, the two had fought for dominance in a multi-billion dollar market, but their competition had become so intense and so intertwined that the most logical conclusion was a merger. The story of their rivalry began in the 1930s, when sunglasses were not yet a staple of American life.

Movie stars in sunny California wore them to shield their eyes and to avoid being recognized, and the public, eager to imitate them, quickly created a surge in demand. Ray-Ban emerged from this moment as a leader. It was created by Bausch and Lomb, a large company specializing in lenses and eyewear, to solve a specific problem: intense glare was making it difficult for pilots in the US Army Air Corps to see properly and was even making them feel ill. The anti-glare sunglasses they developed were named Ray-Ban to emphasize their protection from the sun’s rays, and the specific line became known as Aviators.

Worn by American troops during World War II, including General Douglas MacArthur, Ray-Ban quickly became one of the coolest and best-selling brands in the country. Oakley’s origin could not have been more different. Instead of airplanes, it was motorcycles. Instead of a large corporation, it was one person with a three-hundred-dollar investment.

In 1975, James Jannard created a motorcycle hand grip made from a special rubber compound with an octopus tread pattern. That was Oakley’s first product. A few years later, the company began selling motorcycle goggles, and in 1984, it released its first sunglasses. The original Factory Pilot I Shades still resembled goggles, but the following year, Oakley introduced the Frogskins, a much more traditional-looking line.

Ray-Ban, however, had already moved beyond its functional origins. In 1952, it released the Wayfarer, a fashion-forward design famously worn by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. The film helped spark a craze, and the Wayfarer was soon seen on Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali, and President John F. Kennedy.

In the 1980s, the Wayfarer had a massive resurgence after Tom Cruise wore it in Risky Business. Sales reportedly rose twenty times higher than the year before. Only three years later, Cruise again rejuvenated the Aviators line by wearing them in Top Gun. By the mid-1980s, Ray-Ban was performing better than ever, making it difficult for an emerging brand like Oakley to capture public attention.

Oakley’s first sunglasses were released less than a year after Risky Business came out. Rather than promoting them to the general public, the company stayed close to its original image as a sports brand, an identity it still carries today. Early notable moments included Greg LeMond wearing Oakleys when he won the Tour de France in 1986, Andre Agassi wearing them on the cover of Tennis magazine to hide bloodshot eyes after a hangover during a Davis Cup match, and Michael Jordan wearing them during his brief baseball career with the Birmingham Barons. In the early 2000s, Oakleys appeared in a few movies, including Blade 2, but the most notable was probably the opening scene of Mission: Impossible 2, worn by Tom Cruise once again.

The two companies also differed in their approach to products beyond sunglasses. Ray-Ban remained almost entirely committed to sunglasses throughout its ninety-year history, eventually adding prescription glasses and smart glasses. Oakley was far more aggressive. Sunglasses had been an extension of their original business, which had already existed for almost a decade.

In 1997, shortly after Nike began making performance sunglasses, Oakley filed a lawsuit claiming that Nike had infringed on its patents. The legal battle lasted about five years and ended in an undisclosed settlement. Meanwhile, Oakley challenged Nike directly in the shoe market with the introduction of the O shoe. Around the same time, they introduced a fifteen-hundred-dollar watch called the Time Bomb.

Today, Oakley sells clothing, bags, helmets, and gloves, and an Oakley store contains far more than just sunglasses. Their retail presence also reflected their different strategies. Today, there are 185 Oakley stores, more than ninety percent of them in the United States, including locations in major sports venues like Yankee Stadium. Ray-Ban has 197 stores, but fewer than twenty percent are in the United States, giving Ray-Ban a stronger global presence while Oakley is more common domestically.

The much more important retailer for both brands, however, was Sunglass Hut, and that is where their rivalry became complicated. Sunglass Hut was started by an optometrist in Miami, Florida, as a kiosk at his local mall. Over the next thirty years, it grew into the largest sunglasses retailer in the country with almost two thousand locations. In 2001, Luxottica acquired those locations for 462 million dollars, not including debt.

Luxottica was already heavily involved in the eyewear industry. In 1995, it acquired LensCrafters. In 1999, it acquired all of the sunglass brands from Bausch and Lomb, including Ray-Ban. By purchasing Sunglass Hut, Luxottica was vertically integrating, taking control of the number one retailer of its own Ray-Ban sunglasses.

That was bad news for Oakley. About a quarter of all Oakley sunglasses were sold at Sunglass Hut. With Luxottica in control, the retailer began heavily favoring Ray-Ban over Oakley. Oakley suddenly had trouble getting its product to customers.

The company quickly made deals with mall-based athletic retailers like Foot Locker and went so far as to acquire the owner of forty mall-based sunglass stores operating under various names. Over the next five years, Oakley almost tripled the size of that company before consolidating it under the name Sunglass Icon. Ray-Ban and Sunglass Hut had essentially joined forces under Luxottica and were using that advantage against Oakley. An agreement was signed to keep Oakley products in Sunglass Hut, but on a smaller scale, and all of Oakley’s efforts were having trouble compensating for the lost sales.

In 2007, Luxottica acquired Oakley for over two billion dollars. From that point on, Ray-Ban and Oakley continued to compete as individual brands, but they operated under the same company behind the scenes. Many have argued that Luxottica became too powerful in the industry, especially given that it also owns Pearl Vision and EyeMed Vision Benefits. The rest of the market offers little in the way of equal competition.

Almost two-thirds of the US sunglasses market is controlled by other companies, but the only other brand that stands out in sales is Maui Jim, responsible for roughly ten percent of the market. In 2022, Maui Jim was acquired by Kering, the owner of some of the world’s largest luxury fashion brands, including Balenciaga and Gucci. Kering had started Kering Eyewear in 2014 to design and distribute glasses for its own brands, and after acquiring Lindberg and Maui Jim, it became a significant player in the industry. Most other designer brands, however, including Chanel, Prada, and Coach, are also made by Luxottica under licensing agreements.

Luxottica made its first major licensing deal to produce Giorgio Armani sunglasses back in 1988 and has gradually built up a collection of such agreements. In the end, the rivalry between Ray-Ban and Oakley did not end in the marketplace. It ended in a corporate takeover. Luxottica, already the owner of Ray-Ban, simply bought its largest competitor and absorbed it.

The two brands still face each other in stores and in advertising, but the real competition between them has long since been settled behind closed doors.