Yeah Luxottica, the parent company of Ray Ban, has one factory in Italy and one in China. So certain models are now made in China. It is their own factory though, so it's not just random outsourcing.
On the China note, my friend's father works for a company that installs giant machine belts, and he's been in China for the last few years going non-stop to oversee factory after factory be set up. My friend visited him, and said the scene is something out of Bladerunner. It's just endless factories and smoke stacks reaching out just as far as the eye can see, and beyond that is the outline of cranes, building new factories.
At some point the current trend of sending all the world's cash and capital to China in exchange for plastic back-scratchers is going to seem like an unwise one.
I was doing some research on Luxottica last night and came across that same information regarding their factories in Italy and China. They say they have full control of the China factory which is the up most importance. As I can tell from my made in China Ray-Bans the quality is still the same which is excellent. The RB3362 is noted to be one of those made over there. I am still under the impression most are still made in Italy.
I'm not concerned over quality issues with made in China goods from companies that know what they are doing but it's a shame that the once great pride we had in building the best manufactured products in the world built to the highest of standards has gone down the toilet. Now the key question is how cheaply can we manufacturer our products?
Not to mention the movement of capital and jobs, the US at the end of the day are also deep in debt in their pockets. They have North America by the balls.
