Gentle Monster: Avant-Garde Eyewear
Designer eyewear has been a longtime favorite in the fashion world. With the likes of Chanel, Prada, and Gucci creating their own lines of high-end shades and specs, customers can flaunt big brand names subtly in their everyday. They have become a status symbol synonymous with wealth and the versatility of these glasses make it a staple in many closets. However, new contemporary competitors are emerging, redefining and vitalizing the eyewear scene, one of the leading names being Gentle Monster.
Gentle Monster, born in Seoul, is reinventing luxury eyewear. The designer, Hankook Kim, christened his brand name from the ideas of delicate modesty (gentle) and fierce individuality (monster). These values have held strong since 2011, guiding the company into becoming a trailblazer in designer society. From the start, Gentle Monster’s buying experience is different: With their team having ten times the number of store visual designers than glasses designers, their physical stores, scattered across the globe, feature futuristic art installations, from giant moving heads to hyperrealistic animals. Their store interiors resemble a museum-esque space with sculptures and larger-than-life exhibitions so that the simple action of buying a pair of glasses is transformed into an otherworldly experience. Their promotional pop-ups are more than just commercial advertising: they become a third space for people to gather and connect. For example, the pop-ups for their 2024 Optical Collection, Gentle High School, became popular in Seoul for its interpretation of youthful and new creative minds in the designer space. This imaginary high school teaches lessons such as martial arts and robotics with an ultramodern style. Clients were drawn to this immersive exhibit that mirrored high school spirit, down to special designed uniforms and student ID cards. Gentle Monster also has a cafe brand, Nukade, that focuses solely on selling foods and beverages, and serves as a way for clientele to familiarize themselves with the brand name.
With their exponentially growing popularity, Gentle Monster collaborates with many other brands and designers, such as Maison Margiela and Alexander Wang. One of Gentle Monster’s most recent releases is a third collaboration with brand ambassador Jennie Kim, a collection named ‘Jentle Salon’. It showcases feminine frames with customizable charms, encapsulating the most on-trend styles of recent years: sporty, office siren, coquette, in an easily personalized format. The Jentle Salon Pop-Ups feature displays of vast proportions, like giant unicorns, capybaras and bunnies arranged so that customers can walk between and pose against them. Gentle Monster also sets itself apart from other brands with the creative vision of their PR packages: With ‘Jentle Salon’, the glasses are sent in an oversized pink present box that falls open to reveal a unicorn lying on pink grass, embodying the whimsical nostalgia of childhood. In the past, they’ve sent items such as clothes and ‘jelly’ themed accessories for their 2024 collection.
At heart, Gentle Monster focuses on the artistry behind their designs and stores, providing experience as well as product with their publicity. Their unorthodox marketing draws the attentive eyes of the entire fashion industry, and everyone awaits to see what Gentle Monster’s innovative team will create next.