Meta and Ray-Ban have partnered with Coperni, the French label known for its tech-centric runway presentations, to persuade the fashion crowd that smartglasses are the next hot accessory.
Coperni will debut its take on the Ray-Ban Meta glasses on Sunday at its Paris Fashion Week show, which references the 1990s-era LAN — or local area network — parties where gamers would gather to physically link up their computers and play video games. The brand reworked Ray-Ban’s classic Wayfarer with grey mirrored lenses and a semi-transparent black frame to show off the internal hardware from Meta.
The glasses will go on sale Monday for $549, or a bit more than the roughly $330 that a typical pair of Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarers costs, and only 3,600 pairs will be available. Creative director Sébastien Meyer called the design “a bit nostalgic,” saying it reminded him of Apple’s old translucent iMacs.
“We didn’t want to do something crazy,” added Coperni chief executive Arnaud Vaillant. “There is something also very important at Coperni, even if we do crazy fashion shows and everything, there is always this idea of wearability.”
Wearability has been key to the surprising success of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses since the launch of their second generation in September 2023. Unlike other previous smartglasses, the Ray-Ban Meta maintains the look of traditional Ray-Ban styles while integrating functionalities like taking calls, listening to music and capturing images and video. Meta has also been rolling out AI capabilities, such as the ability to answer questions about what the wearer is looking at.
Francesco Milleri, CEO of Ray-Ban’s parent company, EssilorLuxottica, said during the company’s February earnings call that they’ve already sold 2 million pairs and manufacturing capacity is currently ramping up to 10 million units annually by the end of 2026. In a recent research note, RBC Capital estimated that the glasses could ultimately scale far beyond that and contribute more than 4 percent revenue growth per year for the next decade.
To reach those heights, however, Meta and Ray-Ban need to attract more customers, which they’ve done through marketing like their Super Bowl ads but also the Coperni tie up, which marks the first fashion collaboration for the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
“Obviously our product needs to be mainstream, but I think we can do things that are also very custom to a specific market,” said Rocco Basilico, chief wearables officer at EssilorLuxottica. “And I think it’s always important to keep fashion — high fashion even — in mind when we do this type of project, because there is like a trickling down to all the consumers.”
It was Ray-Ban and Meta that first proposed the collaboration to Coperni. Eva Chen, vice president of fashion at Meta, said the company had been in touch with the brand for years, though they hadn’t worked together directly before. Coperni’s Vaillant noted that the brand had even been contacted about doing something with the Ray-Ban Stories, the first generation of smartglasses from Ray-Ban and Meta, but while he thought it was a good idea, it wasn’t yet a great device. He’s a fan of the newest Ray-Ban Meta glasses, however, and as a lifelong wearer of Wayfarers, this time it felt right for Coperni.
Basilico said there’s more to come from Ray-Ban and Meta. They’re exploring smartglasses in more new styles, as well as from other EssilorLuxottica brands beyond Ray-Ban. Bloomberg reported earlier this year that Meta was looking at Oakley-branded glasses, for example, though Basilico wouldn’t confirm anything. They’re also thinking about how to incorporate the augmented-reality display Meta has been working on, but Basilico added it will be important to maintain the design of the glasses.
“A multi-brand approach, for the wearable category, will be really the future,” he said.
