I am loving this guest post because I am such a fan of sunglasses myself. I love my Oakleys!
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Spring is showing signs of springing at last in the UK, and yesterday’s glorious warm bright sunny weather brought these out of hibernation in celebration:
These are my Oakley X-Metal XXs, with the 24K gold mirror lenses. They garnered a fair bit of interest yesterday at the shops, and not a few grins. They are rather bling-bling, but I wear them when the weather is bright and sunny and they’re something out of the ordinary. The view from inside is much less crazy than the view from the outside – the lenses are a bronze base tint, which makes everything look slightly warmer in colour and brings up the contrast a bit… greens look very verdant through these.
They’re not the lightest glasses I own by a long shot, but neither are they as heavy as they look. The frame is metal – titanium alloy – but I’ve read that there is a core of a lighter material (ceramic?) inside the titanium. They certainly don’t have a lot of ‘give’ in them – the nose bridge is joined to the orbitals by what Oakley call flex couplers, so that the frame has a little movement. On some well worn examples, the couplers can get a bit droopy – these glasses are well over 10 years old and haven’t been worn very much so they’re still nice and tight. I put them on and take them off a bit like goggles – rest the bridge on my nose and then slide the arms down the sides of my head – to try not to stretch them out too much, as they’re long discontinued and Oakley no longer have parts to repair them if they get broken. I do have one set of replacement lenses, just in case!
These are one of my favourites from my collection, and they’re getting quite hard to find and expensive these days. I bought them used but in mint condition off eBay a few years ago, and I’d say they have appreciated in value by approximately 50% since then, were I ever to decide to sell them. Nonetheless I wear them at least a few times a year – they’re a bit mad and definitely very flash, and they make me feel good. Which is the whole point of nice things, isn’t it?
