Baggy jeans, scrunchies, fanny packs, cropped puffer jackets—nineties style is alive and well in 2026. We’ve been on this course for a few seasons now as our pants have grown wider and our jackets cinched up (I’m looking at you, park skiers). But perhaps the strongest nineties trend that has taken the world of outdoor style by storm is sunglasses.
You can probably picture them: the slim, wraparound shades, almost akin to swim goggles, made famous by Michael Jordan rocking his signature Oakley Eye Jackets in the early- to mid-nineties. I’ll be the first to agree that these glasses look ridiculous, but they might grow on you—quickly.
When I started seeing skiers wearing retro shades a few years ago, I thought they were ironic: a goofy pair of nineties-style gas station sunglasses that give off a decidedly counterculture vibe. The style choice felt like a direct response to the oversized shield sunglasses that skiers and cyclists have taken to—technical shades with lenses so large, they might as well be goggles. The fun retro glasses seemed to rebel against gear that was getting as buttoned-up as the world, which has felt a bit heavier and more serious in the last five to ten years.
In 2024, I was skiing at Grand Targhee Resort, Wyoming, and did a double-take when I noticed at least seven different lifties rocking the style. Then I noticed them on raft guides. Park skiers. Teenagers on the street in Manhattan. What may have started as a goofy, counterculture look has become full-on trendy.
Functional Fashion
Oakley first launched the Eye Jacket in 1994, and it became an iconic silhouette of the era, often accompanied by frosted tips, chokers, and ripped jeans. The fashion world took the aesthetic and ran with it, but the design of these sunglasses was originally focused on performance.
Kellyn Wilson, a skier, creative, and co-founder of TOGS—a weekly newsletter created with fellow skier Hadley Hammer that blends functional fashion and mountain culture—says trends grounded in function are often the ones that stick. While 90s sunglasses like the Eye Jacket may look hilarious now, the wrap design provides a super secure fit and extra protection from the sun, ideal for skiing. “These glasses are really rooted in sport,” Wilson says. “We’re always going to have this 30-year resurgence in the fashion world. The nineties were a really exciting time for sport and the outdoors, and I think there’s a tone of fun that people like looking back on.”
Allie Flake, Eyewear Category Manager at Smith Optics, agrees. “The nineties were the golden era of extreme sports—snowboard, ski, and skate—where style was as formative as innovation and performance,” she says. “High energy, bold designs, vibrant colors.” Smith launched their original Slider sunglasses in 1995, leaning into the nineties silhouette and beefing it up with the first patented dual-lens interchangeable system. “The wrap frame minimized the effects of wind, snow, and glare while also providing excellent peripheral vision so they could be used for skiing/snowboarding, cycling, running, and more. The design became synonymous with nineties style—edgy, disruptive, innovative.”
Back to the Future
Wilson says another key design component of these sunglasses is the nod to the futuristic style that was so pervasive in the nineties. “I’ve been calling them round little sporty alien glasses,” she says. Curiosity about the future, she adds, is something that will always resurface. “I think these glasses are a kind of nod to what they imagined the future would look like.”
The spacy look has clearly resurfaced with a vengeance. These days, it’s hard to go anywhere without seeing a pair of small wrap shades, whether they’re on your neighborhood dog walker or a liftie at your local hill. “Even people who are very serious about being cool are wearing them now,” Wilson laughs. “Which really says something.”
You can pick up a cheap pair of wraparound sunnies in the gas station, or find technical options from Smith, Oakley, Dragon, Pit Viper, and many others. Smith just re-launched their Slider series (with key updates like ChromaPop lens technology) as part of their Archive Collection, which has brought back heritage styles for the last decade. “The request for the Sliders Series to return to market comes up every year from consumers and staff,” says Flake.
But while it seems that “sporty little alien glasses” are finally ubiquitous, Wilson thinks we may be getting towards the tail end of this trend, at least in sunglasses. “I think when you start to see them in fast fashion, stores like Zara, it’s a sign we’re getting close to the end.”
Can something that was initially supposed to be silly get so popular that it becomes serious again? As for where sunglass style is heading, we’ll just have to find out.
“I think people are always looking for something fun,” adds Wilson. “At the end of the day, none of this stuff is supposed to be serious.”
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The post The 90s Called, They Want Their Sunglasses Back appeared first on Outside Online.
