Comments on: Ray-Ban Wayfarers & Theories of influence

By: Paul Dylan

Paul Dylan — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:00:51 +0000

Amazing how strong the Ray-Ban Wayfarer has come back. I’ve been wearing them for a long time now, funny to see other brands have very similar styles.

I just bought a pair of the RB2132s at ShadesDaddy.com for $88.00 including shipping.

eBay has them cheap too but most are fake, like $20 ones.

By: Jenny Watts

Jenny Watts — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:04:50 +0000

Ray-Ban is a manufacturer of sunglasses, founded in 1937 by Bausch & Lomb. They were introduced for the United States Army Air Corps. In 1999, Bausch & Lomb sold the brand to the Italian Luxottica Group for a reported 1.2 billion dollars

Thanks
Jenny Watts
Technical Engineer

By: andy

andy — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:05:04 +0000

Hello mate.

When I was at TFCS we put on the events (nyc & london) that relaunched the wayfarers. This was 3 years ago.

It was definitely before things tipped, but god knows what effect the parties actually had.

The parties centred around a photography exhibition. We got Mick Rock to shoot contemporary musicians worthy of the wayfarers and displayed it with a bunch of iconic ones – Bob Dylon, Madonna etc.

The idea was to position the wayfarer as the timeless classic that lives through generations of musical talent. Unchanged, but evolving.. etc etc.

Then again, maybe it helped that we invited this girl too
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hardcoreshutterbug/299819050/

By: asi

asi — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:31:50 +0000

Katie – nice to meet you and thanks for your insightful comment. i agre with your three points take on it

Andy – congrats again for your PhD man. dude i like your conspiracy theories!

Camiel – that’s a very good point and I think this is exactly what happened in the last 3 years. it kicked again in 2006 and rayban were very good at spotting the comeback and helping the growth with loads of new designs.

I took the data from the wayfarers wikipedia page.

By: Camiel

Camiel — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:15:44 +0000

Maybe it took between Blues Brothers and Risky Business for Ray Ban to feel the demand rising up and by the time their distribution was in sync, Tom Cruise came along dancing in his undies.

How did you obtain those sales figures, btw?

By: Andy Polaine

Andy Polaine — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:55:51 +0000

And those ones on Paris Hilton make her look like Timmy Mallet.

By: Andy Polaine

Andy Polaine — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:54:28 +0000

Oh come on, it’s just all a Tom Cruise ruse. Aviators (Top Gun) or Wayfarers (Risky Business). Obviously RayBan are behind Scientology too right?

By: Katie Streten

Katie Streten — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:44:39 +0000

I was at Lovebox too! Most enjoyable day.
I love this post and have my own theory about Wayfarers (and possibly fashion/music culture in general)

My theory on the Wayfarers phenomenon is 3-fold:-
1) Freshness
2) Colour
3) Style magazines

1) Fashion is like one of the Supersizers, always ready to consume something new and with ADD. It wants the new, that stimulates purchase and attention. Anything 80s at the moment is attracting attention, I’ve noticed that we are attracted to fashion in 20 year or broadly generational cycles ie we have a nostalgia for our childhood or glamorize the decade just before we became “conscious”. Wayfarers seem both fresh to our eyes and therefore attractive and also drop an ironic nod to the 80s.
2) Colour – RayBan cleverly updated their classics with colour. Thus giving an old familiar icon an additional level of freshness
3) Style magazines – They picked up on the two above and have been pushing the style to the max over the last 6months to a year. Now we see the fruits.

And then your/Gladwell’s points about influencers come in because celebrities always get fashion a season before everyone else. Either by osmosis (they are in the right set) or by virtue of being invited to the shows 6 months in advance. We see their photos, we follow.

But only if it taps into a zeitgeist we are already feeling and a statement we are prepared to make. And from what I’ve observed a 20 year gap makes something totally uncool ripe for coolness again.

But I’m going to try and resist, I like my aviators too much…