Oakley's Olympic Vision Isn't Just About Victory
For half a century, Oakley has built its reputation on challenging accepted beliefs in sport. At the Olympics, where elite performance is reduced to milliseconds and medals, that contrarian instinct is even more prominent. “Everyone is all about victory. We couldn't give a bigger shit about that,” states Caio Amato, Oakley’s President. "We care about the humans behind the goggles and glasses. Their struggles, their vulnerabilities."
One thousand meters above the Livigno Olympic Park, inside a brutalist bunker filled with archival googles and otherworldly jacket displays, Oakley has built its own Olympic outpost. Riders stop in at the end of their runs through the snowpark to hang out and shoot basketballs into an Oakley-branded hoop. Sage Kotsenburg drops by, then Mathilde Gremaud shows up to pop a bottle of champagne in honor of her Slopestyle win. She brings her gold medal, and people peer at it as if it's a novel object rather than the most coveted athletic award.
Amid the buzz, I sat with Amato and Brian Takumi, Oakley's VP of Brand Creative & Soul, to talk about the Games’ significance.
For Takumi, it's very much about being seen, just not necessarily on the podium. “The Olympics are an opportunity to show the whole world what we stand for, to show the whole world how innovative and disruptive we are through the product."
Over the years, Oakley has leveraged the Olympic spotlight for exactly that, most notably at the Sydney 2000 Games when Ato Bolden deputed the head-wrapping OVERTHETOP shades. Even those with no interest in sport heard about it. This year, they’ve used the moment as a launchpad for the Flow Scape goggles, which have the largest field of view ever in a pair of their goggles. Although less headline-grabbing, they're an equally innovative release.
That visibility extends well beyond product launches. A fifth of the 3000 athletes competing are wearing Oakley. There's the Outpost, filled with the brand's friends and family. The AURA campaign they launched for the Games, which celebrates athletes' "in-between moments". Lastly, for the first time, Oakley has officially kitted out the Canadian and Finnish freestyle snowboard teams, as well as the New Zealand freestyle ski team. The fact that these athletes chose Oakley over their national federation kits speaks volumes about its credibility within snow sports.
Yet, for Amato, relevance begins with humility. “To be a relevant brand in culture, you need to understand your insignificance. It sounds counterintuitive, but we’re here to serve people, to enable them to be their best version,” he explains. In that sense, the Games are a conduit. “They’re a vehicle to deliver products that are athletes’ feelings turned into physical pieces they can wear.”
With just two years between each event, they are always on the hunt for the next groundbreaking design. “We start observing accepted beliefs, and we start trying to actually crack them, kick them, break them, that's where innovation lies. [For the Olympics] we crack a bigger accepted belief simply because we want athletes to have the best of the best." The same mindset applies to everything Oakley creates, and has allowed them to move fluidly between performance, fashion, and cultural influence without diluting its core. "Regardless of whether it's winter or summer or performance or fashion, we look at it as how do we redefine a category?"
Guiding that ambition are brand “creeds,” a set of principles that shape everything from their design methods to their global campaigns. “Satisfy the eye, the mind and the heart,” Takumi relays. Another: "Define problems, find solutions, wrap them in art.“ The throughline is clear. Function is not enough. "It has to make people go 'Wow, '" he adds.
This pursuit of emotion has enabled Oakley to transcend sport and become a part of the cultural landscape. It's driven by a refusal to accept norms that echoes the anti-establishment attitude of action sports. “Oakley has always come from a subculture space; in mainstream sports, we’ve always been kind of the underdog,” says Takumi. "It's super interesting to see how we can influence even though we're not the biggest brand in the world."
Oakley may not have the power to steer the monolithic institution that is the Olympics, but the growing expectation for the Games to keep pace with the world will force change. “It’s got to evolve as well, like everything, especially in a world of elite athleticism and performance,” Takumi says. “It’s all about innovation and evolution.” In many ways, Oakley is miles ahead of where the Olympics should be heading— a place that prioritizes innovation, participation, and athlete empowerment.
You'd think that for Oakley, that would signal opportunity, but Takumi is noncommittal when I ask what the brand's longer-term vision is at the Games. Los Angeles 2028 will be a “big year,” he confirms, as it's a chance to demonstrate innovation on home turf and welcome their athletes into their own backyard. Beyond that, “we’ll have to see how the Games evolve,” he says. With one foot always in the future, the more compelling question may be not where the Olympics are heading, but what Oakley decides to do next.
