An Anti-anti-aging eyewear brand bets America is finally ready to embrace getting older

FastCompany: In Japan, there is a national public holiday called Keiro no Hi—Respect for our Elders Day—dedicated to honoring the wisdom of the generations that have come before us. In Hindu tradition, the third stage of life, Vanaprastha, frames later years as a period of spiritual depth and accumulated authority. It is hard to picture an analogue in a country that produced “OK, boomer.” Here, the picture is grimmer. According to the World Health Organization, ageism in the form of negative age stereotypes costs the United States $63 billion a year in excess healthcare spending.

An AARP study estimated that age discrimination in the workplace cost the U.S. economy $850 billion in lost productivity in 2018. Meanwhile, the global anti-aging industry — built on the premise that aging is a problem to be reversed — is forecast to grow from roughly $80 billion in 2025 to nearly $150 billion within a decade. And yet something is shifting.

Last month, The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story chronicling the unprecedented spike in older women walking fashion week: 50-year-old Stephanie Cavalli opening Chanel, 61-year-old Mariacarla Boscono walking for Tom Ford and Miu Miu, Gillian Anderson and Helen Mirren modeling for L’Oréal Paris. Tim Parr [Photo: Caddis] Tim Parr—the founder of an eyewear brand called Caddis that targets older customers—saw this moment coming a decade ago. Historically, Americans have tended to treat aging as an embarrassment. Parr believes his generation—Gen X—has no intention of following this playbook.

They want to stay fashion-forward and keep pursuing their careers and passions. Caddis is now launching its biggest argument that we’re thinking about aging wrong in a new campaign called “Yet.” It is meant to capture what Parr calls “the space between now and next.” “You haven’t gotten your doctorate. Yet,” he says. “You haven’t learned to surf in Costa Rica. Yet. It’s a very simple way of changing mindset.” It’s also a thesis statement for the entire company, which has spent eight years arguing—to investors, to retailers, to customers—that the way America talks about getting older is broken.

And for the first time, the broader culture appears to be catching up. [Photo: Caddis] Reading glasses as Trojan horse In 2013, Parr launched a bluegrass band called One Grass Two Grass . A decade ago, when he was in his fifties, he was on tour with the band, going up and down the West Coast, when he realized he couldn’t read his setlist. He stopped in at an optometrist in Southern California and walked out frustrated with the selection of twee pink and green cat-eye frames.

Reading glasses, it turned out, were the last unbranded territory in eyewear: a product that 90% of people over 40 eventually need, presented as a $20 drugstore embarrassment. “It was unsexy, dusted over, kicked to the curb,” Parr says. “So that was our in.” [Photo: Caddis] But Caddis wasn’t really about reading glasses. Reading glasses were the Trojan horse. Parr’s clarity arrived in a VC meeting in San Francisco around 2015. The investor liked the positioning, but when she flipped over the sample box, she saw that the brand was targeting older consumers. “She said no one wants to believe they are the age that they are,” Parr recalls.

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The article discusses a significant cultural shift in branding that targets an often overlooked demographic, making it impactful and relevant for brand strategy professionals, while also introducing a fresh perspective on aging in marketing.