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Nothing says summer like a pair of shades. The accessory is a reliable staple each year, appearing across countless street style looks, campaigns and celebrity sightings — and competition is heating up, with independent brands like Christopher Esber and Namacheko entering the market this year. With 58 luxury brands to choose from on the Selfridges website alone, which captured the zeitgeist in 2024?
Saint Laurent spiked in popularity this summer, according to Lyst. Searches for the brand have been up 41 per cent month-on-month since May. It’s thanks to a collaboration between Saint Laurent Rive Droite and the classic Ray-Ban Wayfarer, as modelled by Gen Z It-girl Hailey Bieber. The limited-edition release was Saint Laurent’s first official eyewear collaboration and was covered by publications including GQ, V Magazine, Nylon and L’Officiel, and sold out immediately. Strategic talent partnerships with Blackpink’s Rosé and Hollywood breakout star Dominic Sessa, both of who have posted photos of themselves wearing Saint Laurent sunnies on Instagram, further bolstered hype.
Prada eyewear, which is produced under licence by the Luxottica Group, has been another standout. In July, there were 3,755 posts tagged with #pradaeyewear on TikTok, where users shared unboxing and styling videos; marking the first time an eyewear-related hashtag has appeared on the Vogue Business TikTok Trend Tracker. Celebrity co-signs from Pete Davidson, Travis Barker and Lily Allen, as well as viral campaigns fronted by Jake Gyllenhaal and Hunter Schafer, also helped drive demand. As a result, Prada eyewear’s global brand shares increased by 8 per cent this year to $300 million, representing 3 per cent of the total global luxury eyewear market, according to Euromonitor data.
“Sunglasses are becoming increasingly important for the bottom line of any luxury fashion retailer,” says Natasha Cazin, senior consultant at Euromonitor. “Eyewear is the consumer’s entry point into luxury — particularly for younger Gen Zs who cannot yet afford luxury handbags, watches or footwear.” She adds that these Gen Z consumers have the potential to become lifelong brand loyalists.
“Sunglasses offer a way for aspirational shoppers to borrow against the cultural capital of luxury brands, serving as a way for customers to align with the brand’s identity and prestige,” says fashion commentator Jessica Wagstaff. She notes that eyewear has a high markup, with consumers willing to pay up to £600 for a pair of luxury shades — it’s big business.
Collaboration can drive hype (and sales)
It’s not just Saint Laurent that benefited from the collab model this summer.
Lara Djandji, core and conscious buyer at London concept store LN-CC, namechecks the Gentle Monster x Mugler collaboration as birthing its most popular shades this summer. “Gentle Monster’s designer collaborations with Mugler and Maison Margiela felt like a moment. Particularly with Mugler, it was really cool to see the brand referencing its ‘Fourmis’ eyewear from the 1997 haute couture collection,” agrees Ollie Cox, writer at online fashion platform Culted.
Cox says these collaborations build hype and brand awareness via their accompanying shareable, algorithm-baiting PR unboxings. Take Gentle Monster’s recent collaboration with Blackpink’s Jennie Kim: the PR box featured an outlandish stuffed unicorn toy. “I’m literally gonna start becoming an influencer just to get a PR package like this,” wrote one Instagram user. “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” wrote another. Kim’s accompanying two posts to her 82 million followers garnered over 11 million likes altogether.
But you don’t need A-list talent or historic luxury houses for a collaboration to succeed.
London-based concept store Goodhood has started partnering with up-and-coming brands to create exclusive shades, in hopes of enticing consumers into the store. “Over the last few seasons, we have collaborated with our friends at Sun Buddies and Sub Sun on our own Goodhood frames, as our customers are always after something they can’t find anywhere else,” say founders Kyle Stewart and Jo Sindle. They also partnered with Berlin-based AF Reflect to launch their collaborative frames at Houghton music festival, and “the comments almost broke our Instagram”. Sunglasses is a category they’re looking to grow.
Aligning with big summer events and trends
Fashion took centre stage at this year’s Paris Olympics, and it proved a promotional playground for shades, too.
Wrap-around sunglasses have historically been viewed as practical but not fashionable, though demand is now soaring thanks to prominent placements at the summer games. “While these styles were all born in sports, we’ve seen adoption of them into culture as these worlds collide even more,” says Caio Amato, global chief of marketing at Oakley.
More than 2,000 Olympic athletes wore Oakley sunglasses at this year’s games. This included high-profile moments like Belgian road bike cyclist Remco Evenepoel crossing the finish line under the Eiffel Tower sporting a pair of Oakley shades. As well as France’s Cassandre Beaugrand winning gold in the Women’s Individual Triathlon while wearing Oakley’s Radar EV Path silhouette.
As a result, “we’ve seen unprecedented reach, unmatched brand interactions, and recognition in the industry (including Hypebeast’s top 50 brands list, where Oakley has reached its best position yet, 13th place)”, says Amato. Searches for Oakley sunglasses have increased 140 per cent since May at Selfridges. British high street fashion and food retailer Marks Spencer reports that customer demand for its sporty shades is up 73 per cent on last year. “We believe in designing for the future and delivering to the present,” says Amato on maintaining momentum. “Our scientists are continuously looking for new problems to solve and new insights to work with,” he adds, noting that sports innovation remains the priority.
TikTok trends can help boost sales for brands that align (intentionally or not) with the most popular niche aesthetics. “It would be hard not to acknowledge Brat summer, everyone wants that signature Charli [XCX] look that is synonymous with shapes from Balenciaga,” says LN-CC’s Djandji, who notes that shades matching this description have been flying off the shelves. Djandji is confident that sunglasses will remain a core growth category. “They’re popular year-round. You don’t need the sun to wear them — they are always chic to just throw on.”
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