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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.
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.
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 CL from 2NE1 to Emily Ratajkowski to Jake, Niki and Sunghoon from Enhypen wearing the label’s varied styles.
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.
For Gentle Monster, the uniqueness of function, style and experience is fundamental to becoming a trailblazer. Now we watch as the fire builds.
SHOP ICON’S TOP PICKS:
HEIZER 01, GENTLE MONSTER, $369, SHOP NOW
LILIT 01(BR), GENTLE MONSTER, $356, SHOP NOW
LILIT 01, GENTLE MONSTER, $356, SHOP NOW
ABA 02, GENTLE MONSTER, $437, SHOP NOW
