Banish the sun
Long before Meta, the U.S. Army helped bring Ray-Bans to scale
From Tom Cruise in Top Gun to Taylor Swift in…Taylor Swift, few accessories command as much cultural power as Ray-Ban sunglasses. The star power and broad appeal associated with these specs are major reasons why last week news broke that Meta was considering acquiring a 5 percent stake in EssilorLuxottica, the company that makes Ray-Bans. If a deal materializes, it would represent a significant step in the partnership Meta and EssilorLuxottica launched in 2021 to produce smart glasses, Ray-Ban Meta. But long before Meta, the U.S. Army helped bring Ray-Bans to scale, and long before Tom Cruise wore aviators, the original icon was U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur.
General MacArthur, 1945. Source: Smithsonian.
The beginning of this story is a little bit murky, but it seems as though the Army Air Corp commissioned the company American Optical to make sunglasses for aviators in 1935. The first Ray-Bans were invented in 1936 by J.A. Macready, a pilot who worked for Bausch & Lomb; they were goggles for military aviators. The goggles were named Ray-Bans because they banned the rays of the sun. Yes, that’s right. There’s probably a joke here about pilots and creativity, but whatever they might have lacked in originality, Bausch & Lomb made up for with marketing prowess.
World War II dramatically increased demand for aviator sunglasses and the frames caught on across the military. Army General Douglas MacArthur, arguably the most well-known American military officer at the start of the war, famously wore Ray-Bans as he waded on shore during the amphibious invasion of Leyte Island in the Philippines (shown below). This was one of the most iconic images of the war and it helped popularize Ray-Bans with the American public.
Source: FDR Presidential Library & Museum.
MacArthur marked the Army’s high point with its relationship to Ray-Bans. Following the war, in 1947, the Air Force stood up as its own military service, independent from the Army. And while aviators continued to be popular with Army soldiers, by the 1980s, it was fictionalized Top Gun pilots who took Ray-Bans into the stratosphere commercially (and maybe literally).
The Army played a large role in popularizing another sunglasses company, Oakley, during the Global War on Terror era, but that is a story for another day. For now, the next time you put on your Ray-Bans Meta, maybe ask the smart frames to play the Army Song in homage to its role in bringing these glasses to the market.
Additional Resources:
Note: this article benefited from multiple pieces that discuss the relationship between the military and Ray-Bans or aviators. You can view them: here, here, here, and here.
Disclosure: In the interest of full transparency, to the best of my knowledge, I do not have a direct financial interest in any of the publicly-traded stocks or companies mentioned in this post, but I do have a financial interest in funds which include or reference Meta.
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