Ray-Ban is bringing in a fresh set of eyes from the world of hip-hop.
On Friday, the 88-year-old eyewear label named hip-hop artist A$AP Rocky its first-ever creative director. Rocky’s role will be to reinvent Ray-Ban Studios, an electronic music-centered sub-label launched by Ray-Ban in 2016, as a broader creative platform for Ray-Ban. His first set of products, dubbed the “Blacked Out Collection,” will rework the label’s “Mega” frames and is slated to come out in April.
“This partnership will be 360 degrees. He will co-create everything from products to new flagship stores in the future,” said Ray-Ban president Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio.
The announcement comes shortly after the artist was found not guilty of two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon on Tuesday. Rocky notably wore Ray-Ban frames for court appearances since the trial’s start in January.
Del Vecchio said he was attracted by the rapper’s multi-faceted interests beyond music, which include everything from building furniture to acting. Rocky arrived with a “volcano of ideas” after conversations with Ray-Ban started in summer 2024, according to Del Vecchio, who became president of Ray-Ban in March 2024. The hope is that the long-term partnership can help Ray-Ban appeal to a new generation of customers and regain some of its lost cultural heat.
“We are not a traditional brand. We never had a creative director, so we wanted the first one to be untraditional and revolutionary,” Del Vecchio said.
Since gaining prominence in the 2010s, the rapper has inked deals with both luxury labels such as Gucci and sportswear brands such as Under Armour. In 2023, Puma appointed Rocky to be creative director of a multi-year Formula 1 partnership that extends across apparel and footwear.
For Ray-Ban’s parent company, EssilorLuxottica, the partnership follows a larger investment it has made into streetwear culture with the purchase of Supreme in July 2024. On a recent earnings call, the company said the brand was growing in line with the rest of the group and that it planned to expand the label’s footprint via e-commerce and store openings while improving its eyewear offerings.
It also revealed that it has sold more than two million units of its Ray-Ban Meta glasses since launching them in September 2023. It expects to scale production to 10 million units annually by the end of next year. In January, Bloomberg reported that the company also plans to introduce Meta glasses with Oakley, another of its brands.
Del Vecchio didn’t rule out the possibility of Ray-Ban’s tie ups with Rocky and Meta intersecting.
“I can only give you the vision of Ray-Ban Studios at the moment, but if those three parties want to collaborate one day, why not?” he said.
