He Has His Father’s Eyes : When Greg Arnet began his own sunglasses firm, son Kip knew he had something to contribute. He tailored his university projects to help create some innovative designs.

From the trunk of a rental car, Greg Arnet started a revolution. He crossed the nation with a secret weapon he and his son Kip created that changed the face of style.

In four years, San Clemente-based Arnet sunglasses have generated phenomenal interest among consumers, the media and the entertainment industry.

The firm’s ever-innovative styles--notable for their wrap frames--have become fashion standards, featured in glamour mags Elle and Harper’s Bazaar as well as in the magazines of the surf, skate, snowboard and mountain bike markets that the company targets.

The Beastie Boys, Michael Jordan, Madonna and Bridget Fonda are fans. Tom Cruise sports a pair in the upcoming film “Mission: Impossible.”

And Arnet sunglasses have become a source of widespread imitation by competitors. The proof: Almost every company has a wrap frame this year, many mirroring in silver the chrome model that catapulted Arnet to a popular perch last year.

“It just seems like a blur,” Kip Arnet, 24, says of the company’s success.

At the end of 1991, Kip was finishing his last year at his father’s alma mater, the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., studying graphic design as his father did.

Greg, 44, had just ended a decade-long relationship with Oakley, known for its signature sports-specific shield eye wear. There, he handled design and international marketing, specifically how to appeal to the surf and snow markets he knew. The label grew, but the size of his stake in the company didn’t grow as he had expected. He says his work with the company “was over in 15 minutes.”

Before Oakley, he worked on the design development of motocross bikes at Honda Motor Corp. and, before that, Suzuki. He raced competitively until the early 1970s, when an accident cut short his career. But the experience enabled him to create many bike and sports gear items.

Likewise, his lifelong surfing lifestyle, which began when he was growing up in Florida, led him to shape surfboards in Hawaii. It was a trade he returned to in the early ‘80s when he owned a surf shop in Laguna Hills.

After Oakley, Greg set out to reinvent eye wear as an accessory that could be as fashionable as it was functional.

“It was a rough nine months,” he recalls. “I didn’t have a paycheck coming in, and I thought I might have to have Kip drop out of school.”

Greg and his wife, Lois, refinanced their Laguna Beach home and borrowed money to keep Kip in school.

Kip focused his school projects, from marketing to logo design, on the family business, while Greg tinkered with prototypes.

Greg wanted a look that was different from anything he had done for Oakley or that he saw in the market. “I wanted to get back to the basics,” he says. “Everyone [in 1991] was doing shields and brights.”

With help from his son, who was a fax or a phone call away, Greg melded a ‘50s rebel-without-a-cause look with the in-your-face aesthetic of modern youth. The company’s two debuting models--the Raven and the Black Dog--were available only in black.

In January, 1992, Greg got a rental car in Miami and began showing his two models across the country to surf shops. Along the way, he recruited sales representatives. Shop owners who knew him, he says, “put a lot of their trust in me to bring the sunglass market back into their stores.”

Among them was Eric (E.J.) John, owner of Laguna Surf & Sport and Second Reef Surf Shop in Laguna Beach. “Arnet revitalized a category that had been in the doldrums for years,” John says. “From a retail standpoint, sunglasses are key because of their markup and shelf life. Greg helped spawn new interest in eye wear and a slew of competitors.”

The collection now features seven styles, including snow goggles, available in an array of colors and treatments. But it was the chrome model, inspired by the shiny hardware on hot rods, that created the greatest buzz among the fashion-minded when it arrived in stores last year.

The chrome Ravens signaled a turning point for the company. “That’s when we realized people are expecting a lot more from us,” Greg says. “The overnight success sent up cautionary flags.”

They slowed production of the chrome frames, eventually stopping completely, and introduced interpretations of the Raven wrap.

There’s the Catfish, a sleeker offshoot in glossy, sparkling metallic and matte finishes that recalls a hot-rod paint job: purple, red, green, blue, pearl and gold. The zyl Raven frame also morphed into a metal wire version in silver and maroon.

When others brought out their narrow renditions of the Catfish, the Arnets responded by going the other way. They offered a wrap with a rounder eye for a bug-eye effect. It’s called the Hot Cakes, and it hit stores this week.

For the Hot Cakes model, Kip designed a package that resembles a pancake mix product. The Pop Art, full-color box is made of recycled materials. From the beginning, the Arnets shunned the widely used acrylic eye-wear cases and used natural and black boxes made of recycled materials; eco-sensitive packaging has become a standard now among eye-wear makers.

Of course, cool styling aside, the Arnets keep function an integral factor to their design. The wrap silhouette provides eye protection from the elements in skateboarding and snowboarding, and silicone nose pads are used because they are softer and don’t rattle.

The Arnets decline to release any figures on revenue or the number of employees, but five months ago, offices and warehouse space were added to accommodate the growing staff and production. Assembly and packaging, as well as Greg’s hand-sculpted designs, are done on the premises.

The company’s workday begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. On Friday, they cut out at 11:30 a.m., a decision the company as a whole reached so they could beat the traffic to the mountains or beach.

“Some of our best company meetings have been out surfing or snowboarding,” Greg says.