The Ray-Ban Story
... and how Tom Cruise saved Ray-Ban in the 80s.

A thread

1/ Ray-Ban was founded in 1937 as a brand of Bausch & Lomb. They wanted to make sunglasses for the US Army Air Corps to protect their 'aviators' from the rays of the sun.

2/ The first prototype, created in 1936, had a plastic frame, green lenses and was called 'Anti-Glare'. The idea was to cut out glare without obscuring the vision. They redesigned it with a metal frame the next year and patented it as the 'Ray-Ban Aviator'.

3/ The Ray-Ban Aviator glasses gained popularity during World War II, when General Douglas MacArthur was photographed with Ray-Ban sunglasses on while landing on a beach in the Philippines in 1944.

4/ Ray-Ban quickly become a part of American fashion and pop culture when in 1952 they decided to remove the metal frame and replaced it with a plastic one and started calling it the 'Ray-Ban Wayfarer'. That is considered as a revolutionary moment in eyewear design.

5/ Throughout the 50s and 60s, Ray-Ban Wayfarers become popular among many celebrities and musicians including Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Buddy Holly, and James Dean.

6/ But the popularity and sales had started declining in the 70s. The Disco-era almost killed Ray-Ban. People were more interested in extravagant eyewear from designers like Dior.

7/ In the mid-70s, Ray-Ban introduced a line of sunglasses inspired by the Disco era but it failed to gain popularity.

8/ In 1980, Ray-Ban made sunglasses made an appearance in the movie The Blue Brothers. Despite their efforts, only 18,000 pairs were sold in 1981.

9/ In 1982, Ray-Ban signed a $50,000 a year contract with Unique Product Placement of Burbank, California, to place Ray-Ban sunglasses in movies and TV shows.

10/ Ray-Ban sunglasses appeared in numerous movies and television shows every year, between 1982 and 1987.

11/ In 1983, Tom Cruise wore Ray-Ban Wayfarers in the movie Risky Business and that changed everything. The brand sold more than 360,000 pairs of sunglasses. The brand was hardly able to keep any stock. Wearing Ray-Ban was cool once again.

12/ 3 years later, in 1986, Tom Cruise wore the Ray-Ban Aviators in Top Gun and the sales of Aviator sunglasses went up by 40% in the following months. That year the brand sold 1.5 million pairs of sunglasses.

13/ Tom Cruise's movies singlehandedly increased sales of Ray-Ban by over 40%. Twice. Ray-Ban sunglasses also made appearances in other hit movies around the same time such as The Breakfast Club, Miami Vice, and Moonlighting.

14/ In the 80s, Ray-Ban had also gained popularity among musicians: Madonna, Michael Jackson, Blondie's Debbie Harry, Morrissey, U2, Elvis Costello, and many more.

15/ But once again, in the 90s, the popularity of Ray-Ban started fading away as people started following grunge-styled eyewear, and wrap-around sunglasses from Oakley.

16/ In 1999, Luxottica acquired Ray-Ban for $645M.

17/ Before the acquisition, Ray-Bans were being sold at $29 a pair. Luxottica bought the company, stopped selling Ray-Bans & took it off the market, refurbished everything, & started selling those $29 pairs at the price of $150+ about a year later. (Ref: https://twitter.com/palakzat/status/1271007647127367680)

18/ In 2007, Ray-Ban relaunched their original Wayfarer design and expanded the color palette and patterns. Sales went up by 271% compared to the previous year. Ray-Bans were cool once again.

19/ The brand has seen soared under Luxottica. Sales of Ray-Ban has gone from €252M in 2000 to €2,065M in 2014.

20/ Trends may come and go, Ray-Ban is here to stay.

End of thread. Stay tuned for more threads every week.