Oakleys tend to be bought for doing something in.
Driving into low sun on the way home. A ride where the light changes every two minutes under the trees. Eighteen holes in flat grey cloud. They are not really fashion sunglasses — they are equipment you happen to like the look of, which is why people keep them so long and why they are so reluctant to put them in a drawer.
And then the prescription changes, and they go in the drawer anyway.
Most people who contact us about this have already talked themselves out of it. They assume a wrapped frame cannot take a prescription. They assume Prizm is off the table once your eyes need help. And they assume that whatever ends up in the frame will be a copy — a lens cut by somebody else to roughly the right shape.
None of those are true, and the last one is why we set this up the way we did.
What these actually are
Oakley Authentic Prescription lenses are made by Oakley, in Oakley's own lab, and cut to the frame you already own. They are Plutonite, laser-etched with the Oakley O, and they carry Oakley Stealth anti-reflective on both surfaces.
Plutonite blocks 100% of UVA and UVB on its own, not because a coating has been added on top that can wear off. That is worth knowing if you have ever been sold a UV coating as an extra.
They are dispensed here by a GOC-registered dispensing optician, and the prescription is checked against your actual frame before the job is placed — not after.
Yes, you can have Prizm
This is the question we get asked most, so: yes. Prizm is not a coating or a tint name, it is a lens that filters specific wavelengths to lift the contrast that matters in one environment. Prizm Road pulls detail out of tarmac and brake lights. Prizm Golf separates grass from everything that is not grass. Prizm Deep Water is built for looking into water rather than at it.
All of it is available with your prescription in it. Prizm Black, Grey, Sapphire, Jade, Ruby, Tungsten, Rose Gold, 24K and Violet for everyday use; Road, Road Black, Road Jade, Trail, Trail Torch, Field, Golf, Dark Golf, Low Light, Deep Water and the Snow range for one job in particular. Most come polarised as well.
If Prizm is not what you are after, the plain range is there too — grey, black iridium, bronze and sapphire iridium — along with clear, and Transitions if you want one pair that does both.
What it costs
A standard tint is £249, or £299 polarised. Prizm is £279, or £329 polarised. Clear is £269. Transitions is £389. A shield insert starts at £229.
That is the lenses, the glazing and the coatings together. A strong prescription needs Oakley's high-prescription glazing and adds £20, and you are told that before you pay, not afterwards.
Fitting is the only other thing. Fit them into the frame yourself and there is nothing more to pay. If you would rather we did it, it is £10 and includes a Royal Mail label to send the frame in on.
Which Oakleys
Ninety-four models at the time of writing — Holbrook and its whole family, Frogskins, Gascan, the Flak 2.0 sizes, Crosshair, Mainlink, Latch, Sylas, Gibston, Plazma, Portal, Twoface, Whisker, Holbrook Metal and Titanium, and a good many more besides.
What we need from you is the model number and size. On Oakley these are printed inside one of the arms: an OO number, then the eye size, so something like OO9102-55. Type the number or just the model name into the frame box and the right one will come up.
The frame does not need to have come from us and it does not matter how old it is. If it is sound, it can be glazed. If it is not quite sound — a tired hinge, a stretched arm — that is usually repairable, and we would rather repair it than tell you to buy another.
Shields work differently, and it is worth understanding why
A single-lens shield — Radar EV Path, Radar EV Pitch, Jawbreaker, M2 Frame XL — cannot have your prescription ground into the shield itself. The curvature is too extreme to hold an accurate prescription across that span, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not doing you a favour.
What Oakley makes instead is a prescription insert: a small carrier that sits behind the shield with your lenses in it. You keep the shield and the field of view, and the prescription sits where it can be made accurately. Grey, black iridium or clear, from £229.
What we cannot do
These are single vision lenses. Varifocals and bifocals are not made for Oakley sun frames by anyone, so if that is what you need, we would rather say so here than take your money and explain later.
Power range depends on the frame. A flat frame will take more than a steeply wrapped one, which is simple optics rather than a policy. Cylinder goes to 3.00 on a two-lens frame and 2.00 on a shield insert. You are never shown a lens that cannot be made for your prescription in your frame, so anything you can select, we can make.
How long it takes
Seven to ten working days from the day the job goes in. If you are sending the frame to us for fitting, that clock starts when it arrives.
If your prescription is sitting in a drawer somewhere of its own, order anyway and choose to send it on later. We will email you for it. Your optician has to give you a copy — it is yours.
Why we bothered with this
We have been repairing and reglazing eyewear since 1999, and the sentence we hear most often is some version of I loved those and I had to stop wearing them. A frame that genuinely fits is not easy to find, and there is something quietly daft about a good pair sitting unused because the lenses in them are the wrong ones.
So — what is in your drawer? Send us the model number off the arm and we will tell you honestly whether we can do it.