Last week, with its introduction of Meta Glasses, Meta launched a fashion house. That was the read among some in the fashion community, anyway — and, essentially, that was its intention.
“We basically have our own accessories line now,” Eva Chen, vp of fashion at Meta, told Glossy in her first interview about Meta Glasses’ debut. “So, my team and I have been working to bring the Glasses to the fashion industry and, similar to [what we did for] Instagram, help people understand how to use them.”
The role of Chen and her team has also included providing feedback to Meta’s design and product teams on how the glasses’ target audience — “the fashion industry, women and consumers, in general,” Chen said — would want the glasses to look.
“As Mark [Zuckerberg] has said a million times, ‘Fundamentally, the product has to look good’ — and so there have been a lot of cues and feedback from the fashion industry,” she said.
On the Glasses’ June 23 release date, all the components of a buzzy 2026 fashion launch were there: Meta debuted an all-new Instagram account, @metaglasses, which is approaching 100,000 followers 11 days after going live. Its founder, Zuckerberg, hyped the product rollout to a curated group of tastemakers-slash-press, including Substacker Emily Sundberg. And the company threw an exclusive party, attended by “it” girls and guys, including A-list fashion stylist Law Roach; “tradwife” creator Nara Smith, who typically works with the likes of Marc Jacobs; and DJ Peggy Gou, who recently worked the Chanel Métiers d’Art 2026 after-party and attended the YSL fall 2026 show at Paris Fashion Week — Vogue covered her PFW appearance in a day-in-the-life-style story. The launch event eventually opened to a broader community of “the downtown scene,” Chen said, allowing more people to try on the glasses in interactive, Instagrammable settings.
And let’s not forget that Meta tapped one of the biggest influencers of our time to, well, influence. Kylie Jenner, who boasts 382 million followers on Instagram alone, is the face of its launch campaign and a collaborator on three of its debut Glasses, with additional products potentially on deck.
At the launch event, Jenner mixed and mingled, and documented highlights on Instagram Stories. And overall, she has contributed to the Glasses’ promotion by posting three dedicated in-feed Instagram slideshows, which so far have a total of 5.5 million likes. She has also been featured on Meta Glasses billboards in New York and L.A., among other marketing assets.
“Kylie is such a force; she really influences the way women and girls dress. Plus, she thinks like a content creator — and, most importantly, she loves the product,” Chen said.
In recent years, Jenner has increasingly aligned with fashion, attending Paris Fashion Week, appearing in Miu Miu ads, serving as an unofficial Schiaparelli muse and attending the Met Gala, for example. But her power to move products has been evident for over a decade, with sales of her Kylie Lip Kits, launched under her Kylie Cosmetics label in 2015, prompting Coty to acquire a majority stake in the brand at a $1.2 billion valuation.
“If we’re targeting the Gen Z girlies, Oakley and Ray-Ban are not going to get them,” said Dayna Carney, founder of the social-first creative agency Dayna’s House, referencing Meta’s prior smartglasses collaborators. “They had to bring in more cultural cachet.”
Janey Park, founder of The Digital Runway advisory and Substack, agreed that Meta was “onto something” with Jenner, calling the partnership “strategic,” yet undoubtedly costly. She noted that the contribution of Jenner’s voice likely ups her skin in the game — Jenner voices the Glasses’ Meta AI feature in the frames she co-designed.
“Is [Jenner] really tech? No, but maybe that’s not the point,” Park said. “The point is just to put [the glasses] on the map and make them something people are talking about, and that are actually fashionable or cool to wear.”
Per Park, Meta’s decision to lead with its own name was also noteworthy. Meta Glasses’ three debut styles are dubbed the Meta Adventurer, the Meta Fury and Meta Glasses by Kylie. “It shows that they want to be like a maison,” she said.
According to Chen, Jenner joined the project ready to work, showing up to meetings with around 12 trays of her own vintage sunglasses, inspiration images and strong opinions to inform the design. She viewed several versions of tortoise before her style’s Dark Tortoise shade was chosen, for example. And she requested the tiny crystals in the corners of her styles’ frames to create a “glint” in selfies and other photos.
While still early days, there are signs that Jenner is fulfilling her intended role. Unlike smartglasses of years past, Meta Glasses by Kylie have been met with positive reviews by fashion fans on social media, several of whom described the styles as they would any of-the-moment trend: “Fashion statement-wise, rating these from 1-10, these are gonna get a solid 10,” said the creator with the account @itsjdevinci, who also called the glasses “cutesy” and “fly.” Meanwhile, “Techie Dani” posted, “Cutest, I’m obsessed. Finally smartglasses for the girlies.” And nano-creator Ruby Garcia called out the styles’ unique case, which features a mirror and folds down to fit in a small handbag. “Kylie Jenner, you ate with this — I love it,” she said.
In the week surrounding their debut, from June 22-28, Meta Glasses saw 275 million social media impressions, 9 million engagements and 97,000 mentions, according to data shared with Glossy by social media management company Dash Social.
In addition, all three colorways of the Kylie styles have been selling “incredibly well” — a testament to Jenner’s “power and influence,” Chen said, though declined to elaborate on sales.
In total, factoring in the various silhouettes and colorways, the new Meta Glasses come in 26 styles. “We wanted to make sure we had Glasses that really suited every style, which we didn’t really have before,” Chen said. Priced at $299-$399, they’re also relatively accessible, she said. Designer glasses with silhouettes similar to the Meta Glasses by Kylie frames are selling for upward of $500.
The fact that the glasses are not super-distinct is by design, Chen said. “In the past, [our smartglasses] stood out to show you were wearing tech on your face,” she said. “These days, the priority is for them to blend into and be a part of your personal style.”
In her conversation with Glossy, Chen — a fashion icon in her own right, having popularized the #EvaChanPose that flaunts one’s shoes and bag while commuting — cited a laundry list of use cases for the glasses, including taking calls, getting answers to everyday questions, receiving live translations, and listening to music and podcasts, all while going hands-free.
But she didn’t make the Glasses’ ability to capture social content a big talking point.
And, overall, per Park, Meta’s failure to foreground the Glasses’ fashion-related tech capabilities has been a miss throughout the launch. ”Someone who’s a fashion girl would want to know that she may be able to walk down the street, see an outfit she likes, take a photo and receive an answer to, ‘Where can I buy this?’” she said.
According to Carney, Jenner’s longer-term effectiveness in popularizing Meta Glasses will come down to consistency — specifically, whether she wears the Glasses in her everyday life and continues to capture content with them. It’s worth noting that Jenner hasn’t posted about Meta Glasses on Instagram since June 24.
But for now, Meta is clearly confident in the partnership. “We really see [Jenner] as a long-standing partner; this is certainly not any sort of limited-edition [partnership],” a Meta spokesperson said, though she declined to offer more details.
Week in review
- Hamptons season is in swing, and fashion brands are taking advantage. Through Sunday of this weekend, NYC-based Guizio will pop up at ESSX East Hampton with a curated assortment of its latest arrivals and best-sellers — Montauk General will be onsite, offering the first 50 visitors complimentary matcha daily. Then, next Saturday, Kendra Scott’s traveling Color Bar summer tour — allowing customers to create personalized, localized jewelry — will make a stop at Surf Lodge in the Hamptons. Per the brand, one in five attendees at its Color Bar events makes a purchase onsite.
- Pegged to the launch of “Elle,” the “Legally Blonde”-based prequel series that debuted this week on Prime Video, L’Agence has released an Elle Woods-inspired capsule collection in collaboration with Amazon MGM Studios and Shopbop. The collection, available on the brand’s website and Shopbop, includes eight of L’Agence’s best-selling, polished silhouettes — including blazers, dresses and denim — in shades of pink.
- On Tuesday, Gen Z-favorite PJ brand Roller Rabbit released a 14-piece capsule collection in collaboration with influencer Kit Keenan (450,000 Instagram followers). It encompasses pajamas and accessories in two exclusive prints and sizes for infants to adults, plus Roller Rabbit’s first apron, a nod to Keenan’s passion for cooking — she’s set to release a cookbook late this year.
- Consumers are clearly still investing in experiences. According to the creator-fueled shopping platform LTK’s latest “trend spotlight” data, released on Monday, searches for “gig outfit,” or concert look, were up 1,000% week over week. The platform counts more than 44 million users and creators.
- Reddit released a new campaign, developed in partnership with the creative agency Mischief, titled “People Are The Best” — with the included beauty spot intended to promote the value of the platform’s authentic reviews. The subject, a young woman in her bathroom, expresses gratitude for the beauty knowledge she’s gained from the platform — expressing, for example, “To everyone who tested sunscreen from around the world to find the best one, this is the boots-on-the-ground journalism we need.”
- According to R.E.M. Beauty, the pop-up experience it hosted at six of Ariana Grande’s sold-out Eternal Sunshine Tour shows welcomed more than 2,300 fans, drove more than 1,000 purchase transactions and sold out of its exclusive teddy bear bag charm bundle every night.
- Amid nationwide high temperatures, the Oil Sucker Spray by Patrick Starrr’s One/Size brand is going viral for its ability to mattify a sweaty face in seconds.
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