How Oakley Takes Aim at the Luxury Market

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Hofkin thinks the R&D funds at Oakley have been well spent. "Product innovation is Oakley's heritage," he says. "The company spending a lot of money for product development doesn't worry me—I'd be surprised if they weren't."

Other Elite products include 1,500 pairs of C Six Aluminum sunglasses at $1,500 a pop, the kid brother of the carbon fiber version, which features a brushed finish to retain the frame's dark gun-metal color; 1,500 Timebomb II watches, Oakley's first mechanical model, which at $2,750 features a carbon fiber bezel, a woven carbon fiber face, and titanium plates screwed to its flexible band; 100 pairs of $500 Elite Si Assault Boots, which have a fireproof fabric made from CarbonX woven with stainless steel and soles fortified with Lenzi, a stab proof material; and $600 Pitboss sunglasses, the only non-limited product of the Elite line, which has titanium plates stamped onto Oakley's O Matter frame material.

Oakley likens creating its Elite line to concept cars produced by automakers: The finished products are expensive and bold, and in all likelihood will never be mass-produced. But the process is more about discovering new methods in design and manufacturing. Oakley's non-luxury offerings benefit from lessons learned in the process. The company's popular X Metal and Magnesium sunglass lines use metals and manufacturing techniques refined by the Advanced Product Development Team.

And Oakley's Advance Product Development Team is stretching every dollar. Its material and manufacturing experiments have pushed the limits of not only the company's knowledge, but its partners. Crosby Composites of Brackley, Britain, which worked with Oakley on carbon-fiber technology, says the tests even helped it refine the process it uses to make brake pads for Formula One race cars. Crosby also taught Oakley a way to cut carbon fiber across multiple layers without the material losing its strength, something it didn't think was possible before the two collaborated.

"Oakley is a much bigger part of our company than just sales," says Luca Biondolillo of Luxottica. "It's where most of our research and technological development for the whole group takes place."

Joseph is an innovation and design writer for BusinessWeek.

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