Oakley × Tony Pitony

I started with something you notice straight away: Tony Pitony’s mask already has glasses. They’re as much a part of the face as the quiff, and that’s where the idea of an eyewear brand came from.

The product is the mask’s own glasses, made real and wearable.

The campaign works on two levels. The first is the name, The King’s Visiony: the King is Tony Pitony, Elvis’s self-proclaimed heir, and Vision is Oakley territory, scuffed up with a y. The second is the strapline, which comes straight out of the world of Tony’s songs.

I treated a comic character the way you’d treat a luxury brand. Brushed gold, fashion-house graphics, museum-piece packaging, all for a singer who performs in a rubber Elvis mask. The project lives on that tension, just like the character does.

I designed the campaign for outdoor advertising in Milan, on the street and in the Metro, and art-directed the photo shoot.

The sunglasses are an Oakley model in brushed gold with dark lenses. The brushed metal comes from Oakley’s industrial side (it started out as a sports brand), and the gold turns them into something precious.

The packaging is a sculpture shaped like a quiff, in black velvet on a gilded metal base. The same gold comes back in the campaign graphics and on the pop-up counter: one colour for the whole project.

The pop-up takes the packaging into the city: a giant quiff in Piazza Duomo, Milan. Same shape and same materials, black velvet and gilded metal, scaled up into a pavilion you can walk into.

Inside and all around it, people try on replicas of the rubber mask and the gold sunglasses, have their photos taken and share them. I designed it so that even people who’ve never heard of Tony Pitony would stop.