Zibartas Brought Back the Legendary Oakley “Medusa” Headgear

Most of us know Oakley as the brand of sunglasses favored by frat boys speeding around places like Lake Havasu while on spring break. But Oakley has been a bit more adventurous than that at times. Back in 2002, Oakley released their legendary “Medusa” headgear, which looked like the kind of thing you could imagine seeing at a Burning Man festival in the Mad Max universe. Today, mint examples of Medusa headgear, with goggles, go for thousands of dollars. In short, it has a following and Oakley wanted to cash in on that legacy, so they commissioned Zibartas to create a modern Medusa.

The original Medusa was both daring and distinctive. It consisted of a leather skull cap with integrated goggles and dreadlock-like decorative ornamentation. While that design was futuristic in 2002, it feels very much “of the time” today, like wearing a trench coat in the years following the release of The Matrix. The challenge given to Zibartas by Oakley was to reimagine Medusa for today’s avant-garde fashionistas—a new generation that seems to find early 2000s fashion very intriguing.

That was a tall order, because the new Medusa needed to both embrace its legacy and do something new. Luckily, Zibartas had some inspiration. It turns out that Oakley has a media department and they produce something called Future Genesis, which is a universe of content that includes comics and animated films. In one of those films, we see a new version of Medusa and Zibartas was able to use that as the reference for the project.

The new Medusa headgear resembles the original in form, but with a few distinct changes. The most obvious is that the “dreadlocks” are glowing tubes instead of inert leather. The materials are also different, with more variation in texture. It still screams “Medusa” to everyone in the know, but is unique enough to stand apart.

The video Zibartas uploaded focuses on the fabrication of the new Medusa headgear. Using mostly 3D printing and laser cutting, with the help of some models provided by Oakley (though with many of hours of custom work), Zibartas was able to construct the form. That was, frankly, a ridiculous amount of work and it required a lot of sanding and painting by hand. But the finished parts look amazing and you’d never think this was a one-off handmade prototype.

The goggles fit onto the headgear using magnets, as do the LED tube dreadlocks. Zibartas even made standalone frames for the goggles, so they can be worn on their own like sunglasses. The light comes from individually addressable WS2812B RGB LED strips, but Zibartas doesn’t provide any detail on the hardware used to control them. We do, however, know that the user can adjust the LED effects through a smartphone app, so there is a good chance Zibartas used something like an ESP32 development board.

The result is pretty fantastic, in the most literal sense of the world. It looks futuristic, while simultaneously nailing the aesthetic of the original Medusa from two decades ago. We aren’t sure what Oakley will do with it, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it show up at some promotional event for their Future Genesis media.