Eye of the tiger: The Oakley Racing Jacket returns for a limited 25th anniversary release

Published May 3, 2023 02:02PM

Poke your head around the trendier parts of town and it’s hard not to notice 1990s styles roaring back into fashion, be it baggy clothes and flannel shirts or center parted hair. Add to that list the Oakley Racing Jacket.

First released 25 years ago, the Racing Jacket was Oakley’s first dual-lens performance eyewear, and it became a favorite of many pro cyclists in the late 1990s and early 2000s. George Hincapie for one sported them during most of his U.S. Postal Service campaigns.

While the style long ago entered the Oakley vault — second only to Fort Knox and maybe the Disney vault in terms of security — it is reemerging for a super limited comeback, and Oakley has pulled together a striking design for the occasion.

Oakley calls the style “Red Tiger,” and describes it as “strikingly stripey.” The red and black frame resembles, what else, a tiger’s stripes and is paired with Oakley’s black Prizm lenses which should offer better contrast than the original lenses released with the Racing Jacket a quarter century ago.

The Red Tiger Racing Jacket is part of the Oakley Muzm collection, an ongoing project where the brand re-releases limited edition versions of archived products like the $14,000 1875 X Metal Edition Romeo and Juliet shades released a couple of years back.

Each of the 375 sunglasses is serialized and comes in a premium collector’s box. They are available at oakley.com and select Oakley stores across the world for $261 USD.

As for why Oakley has French mountain biker Amaury Pierron in the buff for the campaign? We’re not exactly sure, but Oakley says baring it all shows “that Racing Jacket is science and sport, wrapped in one sleek package.”