In this guest column, Luxottica Group Global Travel Retail Director Enrico Destro reflects on the opportunity to brand owners and retailers in offering complete brand ranges and experiences in travel retail. He breaks some exciting news for an iconic eyewear brand that to date has focused on sunglasses in the channel, but is now expanding into other categories.
As the travel retail world puts final preparations together for the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference in Cannes next week, there’ll be a lot of anticipation for the product launches, news and announcements that accompany the show.
Among the big stories coming from Luxottica Global Channels this month is that we are introducing Oakley’s successful apparel, fashion and accessories (AFA) lines into travel retail for the first time. Leveraging strong brand DNA and a reputation for creating products to a high technical specification with uncompromised performance benefits, we are excited to develop Oakley into a multi-category brand in travel retail and drive the next phase of growth in travel retail.
With humble beginnings in California in 1975, today Oakley is a leading aspirational sports lifestyle brand that provides complete sportswear collections to performance, active and lifestyle consumers. The collections provide a vertical assortment to fulfil the needs of avid golfers, surfers and explorers – to name a few – around the world. Oakley is booming in domestic markets with Luxottica Group now operating 361 Oakley O stores worldwide.
To date, Luxottica has focused on establishing and growing Oakley’s eyewear in global travel retail and, in many locations, Oakley is now the number two performing brand, behind the clear category leader Ray-Ban – this underscores the strength of Oakley with travellers and is the foundation of our ambitious next move.
More complete brand experiences
Travel Retail offers a wealth of opportunity to target Oakley fanatics and those travellers seeking more complete retail and brand experiences, particularly within the millennial and Generation Z segments. The trend of active sports lifestyle opens the potential to offer travellers leading technology and performance products with full customisation for their chosen sports, such as surfing, golf, cycling, mountain biking, sailing and skiing.
Our Oakley backpacks are the most iconic and recognisable accessories in the Oakley AFA range and are inspired by the modern lifestyle of commuters, short and long-haul travellers as well as the active lifestyle-leisure consumer, so we’ll be dedicating a lot of attention to this area. The Oakley apparel line embodies the Oakley brand and eyewear collections – integrating leading innovations and technologies to help improve performance for athletes of all levels. The accessories range will also include duffle bags, handbags and caps.
London Supply in South America was the first travel retailer to launch our Oakley AFA travel collection, while we have recently partnered with Lagardère Travel Retail in Geneva Airport on our first multi-category pop-up. The wider channel roll-out is being spearheaded by a number of inflight listings, including TUI, Alitalia and Iberia. Over the coming months, you’ll see further moves into other regions and locations with some of the major industry players.
An eye on the future
I believe there are few eyewear brands with the global strength and credibility to move into a multi-category space. Luxottica acquired Oakley in 2007, adding an amazing brand to our portfolio. With our plans to develop Oakley into a multi-category brand in the travel retail arena, we look to the year ahead with excitement and anticipation. I can’t think of many brands that have originated in eyewear and developed into other categories, but Oakley has the strength in DNA and reputation for excellence to succeed.
The inaugural Oakley AFA travel collection will be on show at the Luxottica stand (RG6 in the Riviera Village) at the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference. For more information, contact enrico.destro@luxottica.com.
*This feature appears in Moodie Davitt Sunglasses Curated, a monthly enewsletter series that offers a selection of stories focused on key categories in travel retail and beyond. If you would like to be added to the Curated Sunglasses mailing list (or to those for any other Moodie Davitt titles), please e-mail Sinead Moodie at Sinead@MoodieDavittReport.com
