USA: Oakley Releases Fall 2000 Footwear Collection

Seven New Models Blend Technical Performance with Aggressive Styling Oakley, Inc. (NYSE:OO) today announced the upcoming release of its fall 2000 footwear collection. Seven new models are scheduled to arrive at leading worldwide retailers in early June, including Athlete's Foot, Finish Line, Foot Locker, R.E.I., Sport Chek (Canada), City Beach (Australia), Olympia Sports (France) and EuroPalace-Matchpoint (Spain). "Skeptics have always told me to never compete against established industry leaders," said Oakley's Chief Executive Officer Jim Jannard. "They said it when we reinvented sports goggles. They said it when we started from scratch with performance eyewear. And each time, the doubters were silenced when our business model achieved market leadership." "Our first shoe combined ballistic Kevlar with race tire technology. It looked like nothing you'd ever seen because it performed like nothing you'd ever worn," continued Jannard. "For 25 years Oakley has maintained its devotion to authenticity, uncompromised standards, and passion for innovation. We pooled our resources and talent into reinventing the concept of performance footwear. The legacy continues." "Oakley utilizes CAD/CAM engineering for product development, including a machine that fires lasers into an acrylic bath to create fully rendered, three-dimensional prototypes. Our technologies allow us to engineer every component from scratch," Jannard concluded. "Reinventing the product means reinventing the process. That frees us to explore technologies, and when necessary, invent new ones. At Oakley, we don't design ideas to fit machines. We design machines to fit ideas."