Police Sunglasses: An '80s Gamble That Became a Global Lifestyle Brand

Police is one of the more unusual names in eyewear — bold, a little rebellious, and deliberately at odds with what a "fashion brand" is supposed to sound like. That contradiction was the entire point. Born out of 1980s Italy, Police built its identity around freedom, audacity, and refusing to play by anyone else's rules — values that eventually carried the brand well beyond sunglasses.

A family eyewear business in the Dolomites

Police's story starts with its parent company, De Rigo, founded in 1978 by the De Rigo family as a small artisan eyewear business in the Belluno region of northern Italy — a part of the country that's long served as a hub for Italian eyewear manufacturing. De Rigo's earliest incarnation, a company called Charme Lunettes, initially specialized in manufacturing sunglasses for third parties rather than building its own brand.

A gamble in 1983

That changed in 1983, when the De Rigo brothers took what CEO Michele Aracri later described as "a bit of a gamble," launching Police as the company's first proprietary, in-house brand. It was, in many ways, a direct product of its era: the early 1980s were a moment when personal style — music, fashion, attitude — had become inseparable from identity, and functional eyewear alone was no longer enough for a generation eager to make a statement. The De Rigo team designed Police specifically to fill that gap, aiming to create unisex eyewear for people who wanted to stand out and reject convention.

The brand's name itself was chosen deliberately, intended to evoke an American road-trip lifestyle and urban edge rather than any literal connection to law enforcement — a way of capturing imagination and a sense of rebellion, particularly among younger audiences. The gamble paid off quickly: the debut eyewear collection was an immediate success.

From sunglasses to a full lifestyle brand

Police's growth beyond eyewear began in 1997, when the brand launched its first men's and women's fragrance lines in response to strong public demand. That expansion continued steadily over the following decades: watches arrived in 2003, jewelry in 2005, small leather goods in 2011, and a full clothing collection in 2013 — transforming Police from a single-category eyewear label into a genuine lifestyle brand spanning multiple product categories, a rare feat within De Rigo's broader portfolio of brands.

Built on celebrity and cinema

Police built much of its identity through high-profile endorsements and film partnerships. Over the decades, the brand has been fronted by figures including Bruce Willis, George Clooney, Antonio Banderas, David Beckham, Paolo Maldini, and Neymar Jr., along with a more recent partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team and drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. Police eyewear has also made notable appearances on screen, showing up in major film franchises including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, Men in Black: International, and The Batman — often through limited-edition collections tied directly to the films, such as the Police Origins 1 style created specifically for the Men in Black agents in 2019.

A recognizable design language

From the beginning, Police built its visual identity around a distinctive eagle logo and a signature color palette of blue, black, and gold. The brand's sunglasses and optical frames span a wide range of materials — carbon fiber, metal, plastic, titanium, and combinations of the above — with shapes ranging from rectangular and aviator styles to more distinctive silhouettes like butterfly and hexagonal frames. Branding tends to stay understated on individual pieces, with the "POLICE" name typically appearing along the temple or discreetly on a lens, letting the eagle emblem and overall silhouette carry most of the brand recognition.

Forty years and counting

Police marked its 40th anniversary in 2023 with a refreshed version of its historic eagle logo and a limited-edition capsule collection restricted to 1,983 pieces per style — a direct nod to the brand's founding year. The anniversary campaign, themed "Audacity Wanted," reinforced the same values the brand launched with four decades earlier: freedom, boldness, and individuality. Today, Police products are distributed in more than 100 countries, with particularly strong markets across Europe (led by Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and the UK) and a growing presence across Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas.