This isn’t a case of jumping on the Hassy trend, Ricoh has a long history of producing special editions of their GRs using alternative finishes, some of them truly truly ghastly.
But it’s just an extra option to their regular stuff, and they’ve been doing it so long they must have some sort fan-base for the practice.
I suspect many of you are only just noticing Ricoh since the APS-C GR (or perhaps the Pentax take-over). They march to their own drum, and have a bit of a wacky side to them, but they make some great cameras.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.