STYLE

By Alissa Thomas

4 December 2024

All Of The New Designer Collections At Gentle Monster

What does a giant sculpted sleeping human and computer-generated bison have to do with an eyewear brand? Quite a lot, if you’re Gentle Monster.

Optical Collection, Gentle Monster. Supplied.

When are sunglasses not just sunglasses? The answer is when they are under the spell of Korean über-thinker Kim Hankook. As founder of eyewear company Gentle Monster, Hankook has generated a retail experience so unreal in its reality that his mega stores now commonly see long queues outside. The stores have become more of an immersive modern art gallery than retailer, and once inside it’s possible to forget that it’s an eyewear store at all.

gentle monster jennie — Jentle Salon Collection, Gentle Monster. Supplied.

Gentle Jelly Collection, Gentle Monster. Supplied.

Achieving peak status in the fashion stratosphere Gentle Monster operates a business model akin to Supreme, where many of the collections are collaboration with high fashion labels. Labels like Mugler whose capsule featured conceptual wide, wrap lenses with a fluid, moto silhouette that echoed the French Maison’s hyper architectural style, and Maison Margiela whose leather frames were designed to equally appease the desire for technology as well as embrace the nuances of their iconic avant garde fashion. Other collaborations explored vastly different aesthetics: Gentle Jelly leaned into squishy ‘gummy’ textures, while the Optical collection took a sharp turn with metallic finishes and futuristic boldness. One of Gentle Monster’s most popular capsules, Jentle Salon, featured pop singer Jennie Kim of K-Pop supergroup Black Pink. Most recently, Gentle Monster dropped a single-frame release in partnership with Japanese video game brand Tekken 8. Designed to reflect the villain Kazuya’s character, the “Inferno” sunglasses merge virtual style with real-world fashion.

gentle monster x mugler — Mugler Collection, Gentle Monster. Supplied.

Mugler Collection, Gentle Monster. Supplied.

gentle monster sunglasses — Maison Margiela Collection, Gentle Monster. Supplied.

This cross-branding is sympathetic to Hankook’s original ethos which is to embrace contradictions. To meld the calm with the volatile, the need with the want, the look with the utility. The dichotomy of the gentle with the monster. And it works. Celebrities are among the brand’s millions of fans, with everyone from Gigi Hadid to Winter from Aespa to Emily Ratajkowski to CL and Sandara Park from 2NE1 wearing the label’s varied styles.

CL from 2NE1 Wearing Spiral 02 M01 from Mugler. Photography: @chaelincl / Instagram

Karina from AESPA wearing MM103-01(BL) and MM103-01. Photography: @aespa_official / Instagram

Left: Ningning from AESPA wearing PARADOXX-G4. Photography: @aespa_official / Instagram. Right: Sandara Park from 2NE1 Wearing SPIRAL01-M01 from Mugler. Photography: @daraxxi / Instagram

Natty and Haneul from Kiss of Life wearing MM103-01(1M). Photography: @kissoflife_s2 / Instagram

However, it is not only the sunglasses and opticals that have put Gentle Monster on the zeitgeist map. Hankook’s knack for groundbreaking retail is garnering worldwide interest as he continues to open stores. In Shenzhen this past September, the world’s third Gentle Monster “Haus” was revealed. And, like his previous venture in Shanghai, this space is branded “future retail”. HAUS NOWHERE SHENZHEN, as it is called, is a mind-bending immersive experience that features extraordinary installations. It’s a kind of Jeff Koons meets Damien Hirst alternate reality where a giant, life-like sleeping human, slowly moving bison and some enormous mantis sculptures create the story of ‘The Insect Kingdom’. It’s an exceptionally postmodern approach to fashion interest, and a clever one, too. This destination-marketing is both news worthy and superb Instagram material. This year, the first Australian concept store opened in Melbourne, and, in top secret news, we’ve been told another international experiential location is in the works.