If you ever find yourself yearning for the early 2000s, you’ve only got to look at what Oakley Factory Team are doing to remedy that feeling. Led by the boffins at Brain Dead, the brand has a special knack for reimagining silhouettes in a way that retains the Y2K styling, colour palettes & visuals but also manages to package it into an acceptable form for the modern day. No leopard print or gemstones, just footwear that oozes with nostalgia.
And now, Oakley Factory Team are finally back for FW25. They’ve stumbled out of the laboratory they’ve been hibernating in, and in their hands are a wealth of new/old foot & eyewear.
Front and centre of the release is the return of the Ibex, arriving in two new colourways, Coffee and Burnt Red, both of which continue the brand’s ongoing attempt to predict the future of outdoor footwear while still looking like they’ve fallen through a vortex from 2003. The synthetic suede upper, flow-moulded cage and reinforced cording system, all synonymous with Oakley’s sense of overbuilt functionality, while mesh windows and the familiar O-Grip outsole take care of ventilation and stability.
Right alongside the Ibex lurks the Flesh Warp, the second evolution of Oakley’s original Flesh silhouette and arguably the clearest example of how far this Brain Dead partnership is willing to go. One look at the asymmetrical lacing system should tell you what this silhouette is about, and FW25 introduces three new materials and colour builds that push it even further: full-grain leather in Sequoia and Blue/Black, and a hairy suede rendition in Triple Grey.
To support the footwear, the FW25 collection also brings a duo of eyewear drops. The Plantaris is the more organic of the two, with lines inspired by growth patterns in nature and a dual-temple structure that branches into translucent silicone grips revealing a vein-like titanium core. Finished with one of those mad removable nosecones and available in an even madder Sepia colourway.
Closing out the collection is the Straight Jacket® 99, an Oakley icon first introduced at the turn of the millennium. For FW25, it reappears in an exclusive X-Silver colourway, keeping the sculpted frame and subtle flame contours of the original while upgrading the rest of the build with modern touches.
Across the entire range, Oakley Factory Team & Brain Dead hold firm to the same ethos they’ve been building over the past few seasons: reimagine performance through experimentation, stitching archival DNA into shapes that somehow feel both nostalgic and futuristic. And even if you don’t fancy buying any of the product, just looking at the campaign visuals will get those Y2K endorphins moving.
The FW25 Oakley Factory Team Collection is available to purchase now from Brain Dead
