Luxottica Spa, Italy's largest eyeglass company, agreed to buy Bausch and Lomb Inc.'s eyewear brands (which includes Arnette) for way more money than it's worth .

Luxottica owns the cheesy chain of cheap-o eyewear fitters, LensCrafter, usually found in flourescent lit malls across America. They also make hideously ugly designer-name glasses for people who cough up enough cash like Emporio Armani, Ferragamo, Perso, and Briko. As part of the deal, Luxottica also receives Bausch and Lomb sunglass brands, including Ray "we were cool in the 80's" Ban, Killer "we'll never be cool no matter how we market 'em" Loop, and "way over priced" Revo.

Luxottica said the purchase fulfills its goal of expanding in quality sunglasses. "With this we add the most prestigious sun brands in the world to our portfolio," says Luxottica Chairman Leonardo Del Vecchio trying hard to see through all the B.S. (in spite of having unlimited access to eye protection). "We gain access to very cost-efficient, high - quality sunglass lens, and lens-coating production."

According to Arnette Director of Marketing Gary Siskar (undoubtedly soon to be job hunting as Arnette purges house when there is a buy out), Luxottica was looking to break into different markets'- it was a main reason for the interest. There will be no changes in the headquarters,management, and production of Arnette (at least not this week)- Arnette will be part of Luxottica but basically running itself (just like when B&L bought Arnette, uh-huh). "We're pretty excited about the whole thing," says Siskar, "Luxotica is an eyewear company and their focus is eyewear." What is B&L then?

Snowboarding's independence has truly been flushed down the toilet just in time for the new millenium. Did we expect anything different though?