Jennie joins Ray‑Ban
WWD reports Blackpink’s Jennie has been named Ray‑Ban’s global brand ambassador, a notable celebrity-to-luxury partnership move. (x.com) That kind of high-profile casting continues to be a fast route for brands to borrow cultural cachet and reach younger audiences. (x.com)
Jennie has spent years as one of fashion’s most reliable celebrity draws, and Ray-Ban just made that relationship official by naming the Blackpink member its global brand ambassador, according to Women’s Wear Daily on April 9, 2026. That move connects a 1937 eyewear label with a star who already moves product across luxury, beauty, and apparel, from Chanel campaigns to her own company, Odd Atelier, which says Jennie founded the label and defines it as a space for projects that feel different from the usual. Ray-Ban is not just selling classic sunglasses now. Its United States site is currently pushing Ray-Ban Meta artificial intelligence glasses as its “#1 selling AI glasses,” with second-generation models priced from $379 to $499 and first-generation models still listed from $299. Those glasses now come with a lot more than tinted lenses. Ray-Ban says the current Meta line includes an ultra-wide 12 megapixel camera, three-minute 3K video, voice access to Meta artificial intelligence, and prescription-ready styles. Meta widened that pitch again on March 31, 2026, when it announced its first artificial intelligence glasses built specifically for prescription wearers, which matters because glasses only become everyday devices if people can keep them on from morning to night. So Jennie is arriving at Ray-Ban at a moment when the brand is trying to be two things at once: the old maker of Wayfarers and Aviators, and the fashion face of wearable technology. A global ambassador who can sell a photo shoot and a gadget in the same frame is unusually useful for that job. The company behind Ray-Ban is also big enough to make a global celebrity deal count. EssilorLuxottica, the eyewear group that owns Ray-Ban, published its full-year 2025 results in February 2026 and its 2025 annual report in March 2026, showing this is a brand being managed inside one of the world’s largest glasses businesses, not a one-off fashion stunt. Jennie had already been orbiting the brand before the formal appointment. Women’s Wear Daily’s April 9 report follows months of visible Ray-Ban activity around her, including a Seoul pop-up appearance in September 2025 that helped turn the pairing from rumor into something the company could now lock in worldwide. What Ray-Ban gets is a celebrity with reach across music, fashion week, and social media. What Jennie gets is a brand that still sells old-school cool, but now has a live technology story attached to it, which gives this deal more range than a standard sunglasses campaign.
