Twenty years ago, sprinter Ato Boldon turned heads when he took to the track at the Sydney Olympics wearing a pair of sport “sunglasses” that wouldn’t be unfitting as a Marvel film costume prop. More goggles than glasses, they had circular ruby-red lenses and a chrome frame that reached up and over the top of his head instead of toward the temples. While Boldon didn’t wear the unique glasses during either of his medal-winning races that year, they became iconic nonetheless. They were Oakley’s OVERTHETOP, and now the company is bringing the design back to commemorate what would’ve been the end of the 2020 games.
While Oakley is building the 2020 OVERTHETOP from the same mold it used for the original, the new edition does come with a few updates. The color design is all-new, featuring a silver that fades into gold toward the back of the head, and the lenses include Oakley’s contrast-boosting Prizm lens technology.
After this release, which is limited to 20 pairs of eyewear that will sell for $2,000 each, Oakley plans to retire the OVERTHETOP mold. You can still find previous iterations on eBay for less than that hefty sum, or you can commemorate the Olympics that never happened with Oakley’s Kokoro Collection, which it released earlier this summer.
The OVERTHETOPs will go on sale on Friday, August 7th at 9 a.m. PST.