In 2005 I was long $AAPL and Oakley ($OO I believe). I believed in ‘fashology‘.

It was frustrating to own Oakley because they were so close to ‘getting it’. The stores were off though. I thought Oakley should have gone private in 2005, but instead they did well by selling out to Luxottica ($LUX).

Luxottica is a massive eyewear manufacturer and rollup based out of Italy. This 60 minutes piece on them is awesome…and I doubt you see them truly take advantage of ‘fashology in a brand like Oakley.

If Google Glass is a big hit, $AAPL may well look back at this missed buying opportunity and wonder what could have been.

The ‘fashology’ era will also be about bricks and mortar. I can buy technology products online and fashion products online, but my ‘fashology’ products and services will be sold well at the mall. I don’t know what future malls will look like as I am not a real estate thinker, but the malls that have Apple stores will have Google stores. Yes, they will also have Microsoft stores, they will just look more depressing. I started writing about this need for Google stores in 2010.

Google is way behind. They are going to come at this very very hard in 2013 and 2014.

Nike ($NKE) and UnderArmor ($UA) as well.

The real estate stocks that are mall focused have done extremely well. Stock prices are forward looking. While we worry about too many Gap’s and Abercrombie’s, the market knows something. Microsoft is a good tenant and will never give up that retail space in a mall that has an Apple store.

Disclosure – Long $AAPL, $GOOG, $UA and $NKE