How Oakley came to be accused of ‘fascism’ for selling Thin Blue Line sunglasses

In the last few years, if you have come face-to-face with a police officer in riot gear at a Black Lives Matter protest, a masked militia man with a big gun outside a statehouse, or an in-your-face, flag-waving Trump supporter, there is a decent chance they are wearing Oakley sunglasses.

The futuristic shades have become a fashion shorthand for a wider set of identities and their associated politics, just like the Patagonia puffer vests of the San Francisco tech elite, or canvas Carhartt jackets of blue collar Midwesterners and the hipsters who imitate them. For Oakley, this symbolism is a long time coming.

Colin Baden, CEO of Oakley until 2015, remembers a trade show in the 1990s in Southern California. A rival brand put up a sign that said, “Cops wear Oakleys,” thinking it would damage the company’s standing among the region’s massive (and lucrative) surf market, not a group known for its excessive fondness for law enforcement.