Meta’s next wave of smart eyewear might swap surf-ready Wayfarers for runway energy, with rumors suggesting a Prada partnership that could see the company’s next AR glasses get a fashion-forward look more at home on the runway than the Ray-Bans which put Meta on the mainstream map.
Prada’s strength as a partner
Prada’s eyewear falls under EssilorLuxottica, which controls the world’s biggest eyewear manufacturer and is home to Ray-Ban and Oakley. Meta took a small stake — about 3% — in EssilorLuxottica for greater co-development, CNBC had reported earlier. That matters as a tee-up: access to the same manufacturing muscle that scaled Ray-Bans gives Meta permission to play with bolder silhouettes, without having to sacrifice quality or prescription support.
Prada, like many other brands, tends to push thick acetate, assertive lines, and wider temples: design decisions that happen to sync up nicely with AR’s material needs. More material means you can have more space to pack in batteries, speakers and waveguides while also keeping the weight even and the tech out of sight. Where Ray-Ban’s legacy calls for something traditional-looking, Prada gets to dictate chunkier proportions that conceal hardware in plain view.
Design that vanishes AR
It’s a packaging problem as much as it is a product one, AR glasses. You need lens-mounted optics, cameras, microphones, antennas and battery cells — but it’s not so obvious that you’re wearing a headset either. Prada’s Linea Rossa and other modern frames have wider temples to house electronics, pronounced bridges to help distribute the weight and a flat interior upon which to mount a waveguide and light engine.
EssilorLuxottica’s network of giant lens labs can create lenses that account for the path through which a projected image may travel. It may not sound all that impressive, but that’s a bigger deal than it might seem: past smart glasses have been forced to stick to wonky lens geometries or a keyhole’s worth of prescription strength. Prada-branded lenses might help normalize AR for the sunglass-wearing masses, possibly including those of us who require prescription lenses.
What “next-gen” likely brings
Rumours about Meta’s roadmap imply two products: a sequel to the audio-first Ray-Bans with better battery, cameras and on-glass AI; and a new AR model with a colour display, often referred to by codenames such as Hypernova or Celeste. The latter is said to have pictures beamed to one eye — frequently the right one — using a small waveguide, sacrificing full binocular immersion in favor of slim style, and low weight.
Look for a tighter Qualcomm silicon, purpose-built for glasses, with beamforming speakers that help limit audio leakage, and privacy LEDs to indicate when your camera is in use. If Meta skews Prada, those parts can fold or slide into face-blade frames that signal “luxury accessory” first and “gadget” second — a crucial leap for mass-market adoption.
The control story: wristbands and watches
The other part is the gesture input. Meta has demoed a neural wristband—commonly referred to by the code-name Ceres—that reads subtle gestures from the fingers. It’s a neat way to be a human who doesn’t use voice commands in public, but a band on its own is a tough sell. It’s why a companion watch is much more likely, and supply-chain rumors reported in outlets like DigiTimes point to a Meta smartwatch that could integrate the neural interface.
A Prada-branded watch twist would make sense: fashion houses already sell timepieces, and a co-branded wearable gives Meta a chance to turn a control accessory into a design statement . It also solves a consumer’s simple curiosity: Why wear a separate band if a high-end watch can do it all?
Out-enticing Ray-Ban without going off-road
Ray-Bans put a cultural stamp of approval on smart glasses, but classic frame shapes constrain how much tech you can camouflage before the silhouette becomes unhinged. Prada allows Meta to be more aggressive — thicker temples to signal battery life, subtly flared edges to hide optics and avant-garde frames that make space feel intentional. That’s how you get a color display, always-on connectivity, and extended runtimes without crossing into “gadget goggles.”
Pricing rumblings have the audio-only live on in the standard few-hundred-dollar range, while the AR variant might touch closer to premium smartphone levels. Splitting the line in this fashion keeps the Ray-Bans as the mass-market on-ramp and Prada as the aspirational flagship where fashion is what brings the extra tech — and the extra sticker.
What to watch as Meta takes to the runway
Seek signs that Meta has cracked three things: prescription support without a hitch, all-day comfort under 50-ish grams and intuitive control that won’t make you shapemouth at your glasses. Keep an eye on whether the display continues to remain outdoor-bright, how much the speakers leak (or don’t, in quiet spaces) and what sorts of on-device AI is capable offline, all areas Meta execs have been hinting are priorities in their public Q&A sessions.
If Prada does end up officially joining the party, it will not just be a logo swap. It’s a design license to bury the difficult bits of AR inside a faceful of eyewear that consumers actually want to put on. That’s how Meta’s next-gen glasses could outstyle — and eventually outsell — the Ray-Bans that started it all.
