Ray-Ban has reached a new milestone in forging its brand identity. The eyewear brand, a flagship asset of eyewear giant Essilux, has named US celebrity rapper A$AP Rocky as its first creative director, in charge of the Ray-Ban Studios.

The Ray-Ban Studios were set up in 2016 with the goal of establishing relationships between the brand and artists and musicians, in order to associate Ray-Ban with a distinctive cultural environment. Until now, the studios hadn’t been involved in product design.

Last summer, Ray-Ban named another US singer, Lenny Kravitz, as its brand ambassador, and is now officially collaborating with A$AP Rocky, 36, real name Rakim Mayers. The rapper, also Rihanna‘s life partner, has a number of links with the fashion world. A former member of the A$AP Mob band, A$AP Rocky owns the AWGE (acronym of A$AP Worldwide Global Entertainment) design studio, and last year launched a fashion label, American Sabotage, staging a presentation in Paris during the fashion week which featured a sunglasses collaboration with Ray-Ban. He is also in charge of design for Puma‘s motor sport lines, a collaboration announced in late 2023.

“For nearly 80 years, the brand has been on the faces of the most iconic musicians, artists, actors and heroes. Today, we are welcoming A$AP Rocky into our family. He’s a visionary artist and creator. His ability to push the boundaries of the diverse worlds he explores aligns with the Ray-Ban DNA. We are reinforcing the brand’s values of innovation, pioneering spirit, and courage,” said Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, son of the founder of eyewear giant Luxottica and president of Ray-Ban, about the rapper’s appointment.

Ray-Ban has very likely refrained from announcing the A$AP Rocky collaboration for a few weeks. The announcement in fact came only three days after A$AP Rocky was found not guilty by a California court of a charge of firing a semi-automatic weapon at one of his former friends in 2021.

He’s now officially collaborating with Ray-Ban in various fields, “overseeing the brand’s creative projects and shaping its image and future design,” according to the press release. Ray-Ban also said that “he will take charge of campaigns and rethink the interiors of Ray-Ban stores, incorporating within them music, fashion and art.” A big job, since Ray-Ban directly operates 282 stores worldwide. The Essilux group, whose main business is opticians’ products, reported revenue of over €26 billion in 2024, and said that 23% of it was generated by apparel (Essilux owns the Supreme brand, which will soon open its 18th store worldwide in Miami) and sunglasses. Essilux did not provide revenue details for Ray-Ban, simply stating that last year the brand sold approximately 2 million pairs of smart glasses developed with Meta.

For the time being, A$AP Rocky will not be involved with the smart glasses segment, but is working on the Blacked Out collection due to be launched in April, a reinterpretation of Ray-Ban’s Mega Icons range featuring a new lens type. Fans of A$AP Rocky, who will soon release his fourth solo album, Don’t Be Dumb, will be looking out for references in his tracks to the famous sunglasses created in the 1930s to equip US aircraft pilots.