Carrera Sunglasses are one of the most popular brands of sunglasses in the world of designer eyewear. The brand is owned and manufactured by the Italian fashion house, Safilo whose headquarters are in Padua, Italy.
The brand Carrera was first launched in 1956 by an Austrian sports eyewear specialist named Wilhem Anger Werker. Wilhem took inspiration for the brand name from the Panamericana road race that ran from 1950-1955 through Mexico in South America. Carrera initially specialised in sports sunglasses particularly for winter sports such as skiing and ski jumping alongside sports goggles and specialised sunglasses for motor racing.
Carrera was renamed to Carrera International in 1974, with their international head quarters being moved to Traun in Austria. It was there that they partnered up with Ferdinand Porsche to develop and create the Carrera Porsche Design sunglasses collection. Carrera International went from strength to strength in the 1980’s as their brand awareness and popularity grew and throughout this period they sponsored many high profile sporting events such as Formula 1 Racing, The Americas Cup and the Winter Olympics in 1988. They also spent the decade researching, creating and launching the Carrera Eyewear range for prescription glasses, which were officially first marketed in 1981.
In 1996 the Carrera brand was bought by Safilo who are the largest sunglasses supplier in the world. Amongst their brands are Hugo Boss, Gucci, Dior, Armani, and Valentino, which instantly gave the Carrera brand access to thousands of eyewear outlets already stocking Safilo brands.
Safilo decided to split the Carrera range into two main divisions, sports sunglasses and lifestyle sunglasses. The sports sunglasses range follows the path the brand was already famous for such as skiing glasses and goggles. However it is the lifestyle range that has really seen the rebirth in popularity of the Carrera brand. The lifestyle division is also known as the Carrera Vintage Sunglasses range with all the models drawing heavily on retro styling from the 1960’s through to the 1980’s.
The lifestyle range popularity has grown heavily year upon year and they can be seen on the faces of many celebrities such as the Italian footballer Paolo Maldini, the American musician Usher and English footballer David Beckham.
Within this lifestyle range Carrera Champion Sunglasses, Carrera Safari Sunglasses and Carrera Panamerika Sunglasses are some of the most popular.
Today the Carrera range is hugely popular and sold all over the world, and are equally popular amongst men, women, clubbers and festival goers. We at Woodhouse love the brand so much that we created a website that sells only Carrera Sunglasses.