Back in the early '90s, the Cheap Oakley Sub Zero's ultralight frame and massive, shielding lenses redefined the term "technical sunglasses." Until the early '90s, no other eyewear brand had dared to concoct something so dangerously elegant, yet reliably tough.
It's just that the mainstream wasn't ready for the Oakley Sub Zero's vision (literally). Popular fashion at the time lacked Fake Oakley's vision of ultra-sleek frames powered by top-shelf functionality.
The shape of Oakley's 2022 Sub Zero sunglasses ( which launched April 28 via Oakley and the Highsnobiety Shop ) is nearly identical to the one that first arrived in 1992.
However, Cheap Oakleys has made a few under-the-hood updates, like beefing up the lenses with Prizm tech and swapping in Unobtainium nosepads and earsocks to lock the Sub Zero in place atop the wearer's face.
Despite the new tweaks, the resulting shades are still featherweight — weighing in at about 0.7 lb — because no one knows better than Oakley how to squeeze maximum performance into a minute package.
Oakley's winding up for a series of summer wins with the introduction (re:introduction?) of its Re:SubZero sunglasses, a slick update to the classic Sub Zero shades it reintroduced in April 2022.
Well, it's not a one-to-one update in the sense that Oakley is simply tweaking the Sub Zero and calling it a day. Rather, while the Sub Zero is an all-time classic refreshed for an era that's only just caught up to its futuristic charms, the Re:SubZero is a wholly new frame designed for the next generation.
Cheap Oakleys loves to talk up its sunglasses' barely-there weight — the Sub-Zero's mass was a key selling point back in the day — and with good reason: it makes the best featherweight eyewear in the biz, somehow packing cutting-edge functionality into a pair of sunglasses that are almost weightless.
The Oakley Re:SubZero weighs in at a svelte 24 grams (about 0.05 lb) — for comparison, the Sub-Zero reissue was about 0.7 lb.
We're talking mere ounces here but, when you're splitting hairs to improve how you train, that makes a difference.
Nishimura, who was the face of Oakley's Sub-Zero relaunch, is joined by Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones and Olympian runner Andre De Grasse in the Re:SubZero campaign, which includes an AR component and a message of self-empowerment through sport.
The Re:SubZero utilizes plenty of Oakley tech that you'd need a PHD in Oakley to fully comprehend — PhysioMorphic Geometry frames, Prizm lenses, Unobtainium nosepads — but all you really need to know is that the glasses' sculpted shape hugs the face and cuts slippage, you'll probably forget you're even wearing them, just like Nishimura.
