Oakley Half Jackets - TESTED

'O' so cool!

Oakleys have always carried a sort of cool prestige which we feel graces its wearers when they don the trademark 'O'. Well that was certainly the case during the '90's fly look era, and you'll probably be familiar with the ubiquitous M Frame design. A decade later Oakley eyewear still remains the choice of a lot of cyclists, with the added bonus of looking pretty good off the bike too. So what have they been doing right all these years?

As the times and trends have changed, so has Oakley's eye-range. They've moved towards some subtler styles as well including as some oversized fashion wear. But what's really moved with the times is their design features and lens technology.

The Half Jackets were released several years ago as an alternative to the M Frame, which many women found a bit on the large side, especially for more petite faces. They're a much sleeker design, with two available lens shapes and a plethora of lens types available.

We've been using the newly released ladies Half Jackets in Powder Blue with Slate Iridium lense. Here's how we got on:

The frames are light weight and give good peripheral vision, with the lenses sitting a good distance away from the face. The straight rubber gripping arms keep the specs exactly where you need them while riding too. Overall we found these glasses to be very comfortable and the lenses impressed us too. The durability, UVA protection and high-definition clarity all came up trumps.

The USP of the Half Jackets is their interchangeable lenses, and with the inevitably variable British weather this is really practical. Each set of optional lenses provide high-definition vision which mean's you have much better clarity out on the road and on the trails. Read more here. The Oakley Men's version of the Half Jacket comes with transition technology lenses, but unfortunately these lenses don't feature as standard on the Women's Half-Jackets (though are available for purchase seperately).

The Slate Iridium lenses provide a rate of light transmission at 23%. To translate this it basically means that they're designed for best use in partly cloudy conditions. In the Oakley range this is indicated by a light index of 2. We did find these lenses quite versatile and actually kept the same ones in for the duration. For sunnier conditions you'd maybe consider swapping the lenses for an index of 3.

Last but certainly not least is the sleek design. The Half Jacket's come in four colours in the women's version; pink, metallic black, blue (as seen) and pearly white. We loved the design overall which was not only functional but subtly stylish and up to date.

Visit Oakley.com for more on their vast range.