Oceanside, California, is not where you expect a global eyewear story to start. It is a surf town, all board rentals and taco shacks, but in 2009 Justin Heit launched RAEN there with the idea that sunglasses could carry the same discipline as surfboards: shaped with purpose, not decoration. The name was chosen as a nod to clarity, an insistence on keeping things stripped down. While other Californian labels leaned into lifestyle campaigns and quick-turn collections, RAEN moved slowly, treating each frame as something that had to withstand both salt water and city air. Wearing them today is less about borrowing surf culture and more about carrying a piece of its precision into your own line of sight.
From Flat Sheet to Frame
Most sunglasses are stamped from prefabricated moulds. RAEN does something harder. Every frame front is cut from a single flat sheet of Italian Mazzucchelli acetate, which keeps the natural grain aligned and the colour consistent all the way through. It sounds technical, but it feels immediate the moment you pick them up. The polish is guided by hand, never allowed to run too smooth, leaving edges that hold their definition. There is something quietly Californian in this approach: a respect for raw material, refined just enough to work, never so much that it loses character. The clarity you get is not only in the lenses but in the way the acetate itself resists becoming anonymous plastic.
RAEN’s partnership with Carl Zeiss Vision brings German optics into the mix, anchoring the brand in technical credibility. Their Remmy frame, first released in the early 2010s, has become a passport piece. Round with a keyhole bridge, it recalls vintage forms without drifting into costume, and it has turned up everywhere from surf films to concert tours. People wear it because it works across places, not because someone told them to. That is RAEN’s quiet achievement: sunglasses that start on a stretch of Pacific coast but carry enough discipline and craft to belong in any city.
“We are handmade, California, Surf, Independent. We are relaxed, inspired, positive, adventurous. Crafted for exceptional fit, all-day comfort, and long life."
