Gentle Monster styled as GENTLE MONSTER (

Hangeul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's Revised Romanization of Korean, standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system f ...

: 젠틀몬스터) is a South Korean

sunglasses Sunglasses or sun glasses (informally called shades or sunnies; more names below) are a form of protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damaging or discomforting the eyes. They can s ...

and optical glasses

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

founded by Hankook Kim in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

in 2011. As of April 2018, the company has 41 directly operated stores worldwide, including in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Retail spaces

Gentle Monster employs 6 people to design its eyewear products and 60 people to design the store visuals.Elaine YJ Lee, ''The Evolution of Gentle Monster'', ''Hypebeast'', Issue 18, July 2017, p. 145-151 Its products are exhibited like

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

pieces in "an immersive and experiential offline shopping experience." For example, in May through August 2016 its

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

flagship store was turned into an underwater experience creates with

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

designer Justin Muir and

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

sculptor Ivan Lee Mora, influenced by the French film ''Le Grand Bleu''.Gentle Monster Transforms Its New York City Store Into an Underwater Oasis
Helena Yeung, ''Hypebeast'', May 26, 2016 In February 2021, Gentle Monster opened a new space, Haus Dosan, to present the brand's direction in retail. Haus Dosan also carries

cosmetics Cosmetics are constituted mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources, or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics have various purposes. Those designed for personal care and skin care can be used to cleanse or protect ...

brand Tamburins and has on-site dessert cafe Nudake. Jun Ji-hyun in 2012 02

History

Serial entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

Jae W Oh invested about $100,000 in 2012 and Gentle Monster began producing frames in

Daegu Daegu (, , literally 'large hill', 대구광역시), formerly spelled Taegu and officially known as the Daegu Metropolitan City, is a city in South Korea. It is the third-largest urban agglomeration in South Korea after Seoul and Busan; it is ...

, which had been a manufacturing hub for

Luxottica Luxottica Group S.p.A. is an Italian eyewear conglomerate and the world's largest company in the eyewear industry. It is based in Milan, Italy. Luxottica is a vertically integrated company, which has been described as a monopoly—it designs, m ...

, and China, since

acetate An acetate is a salt (chemistry), salt formed by the combination of acetic acid with a base (e.g. Alkali metal, alkaline, Alkaline earth metal, earthy, Transition metal, metallic, nonmetallic or radical Radical (chemistry), base). "Acetate" als ...

frames are illegal to produce in

.How Gentle Monster Rode the K-Pop Wave to $160 Million
LAUREN SHERMAN, ''Business of Fashion'', JULY 17, 2016 The brand's designs favor oversize frames much larger than Western brands' because its Asian clientele prefer to have frames that create an image of a smaller face. In 2013 and 2014, Korean actress

Jun Ji-hyun Jun Ji-hyun (born Wang Ji-hyun on 30 October 1981), also known by her English name Gianna Jun, is a South Korean actress and model. She has received multiple awards, including two Grand Bell Awards for Best Actress and a Daesang (Grand Prize) f ...

wore Gentle Monster lenses on ''

My Love From the Star ''My Love from the Star'' () is a South Korean fantasy romantic comedy television series written by Park Ji-eun and directed by Jang Tae-yoo. Produced by Choi Moon-suk and Moon Bo-mi, it stars Jun Ji-hyun, Kim Soo-hyun, Park Hae-jin, Yoo In-na ...

'', and this greatly broadened the brand's exposure to a mainstream audience. In February 2016, the company's first US store opened on Grand Street in

SoHo, New York City SoHo, sometimes written Soho (South of Houston Street), is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and has also been known for its variet ...

. Its second US store opened in

downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is ...

in October 2017. French

luxury goods In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to n ...

conglomerate

LVMH LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (), commonly known as LVMH, is a French holding multinational corporation and conglomerate specializing in luxury goods, headquartered in Paris. The company was formed in 1987 through the merger of fashion house ...

invested $60 million for a 7% stake in the company in September 2017.

Marketing

Tilda Swinton Katherine Matilda Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to ...

collaborated with Gentle Monster in February 2017 in designing three sunglasses and appeared in an ad campaign video. The brand shows at

New York Fashion Week New York Fashion Week (NYFW), held in February and September of each year, is a semi-annual series of events in Manhattan typically spanning 7–9 days when international fashion collections are shown to buyers, the press, and the general publ ...

Collaborations

In 2016, the brand collaborated with Danish designer

Henrik Vibskov Henrik Vibskov (born 1972) is a Danish fashion designer, artist, curator and musician. Commonly associated with the fashion brand carrying the same name, his work is known for its enticing universes and crossover into other art forms. Working in ...

Hood by Air Hood By Air is a high fashion brand based in New York City first launched in 2006 and active to the present day, with the exception of a hiatus between early 2017 – 2019. The brand was co-founded by designers, Shayne Oliver and Raul Lopez (desig ...

, and

Opening Ceremony An opening ceremony, grand opening, or ribbon-cutting ceremony marks the official opening of a newly-constructed location or the start of an event.

. In 2017, the brand collaborated with Dutch furniture designer

Marcel Wanders Marcel Wanders (2 July 1963) is a Dutch designer, and art director in the Marcel Wanders studio in Amsterdam, who designs architectural, interior and industrial projects. Life Born in Boxtel, Wanders graduated Latin honors, cum laude from the ...

, the founder of

Moooi Moooi is a Dutch furniture, interior, and lighting modern design company. It was founded by Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers in the Netherlands in 2001. Name and stated mission When Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers started Moooi in 2001, ...

. In 2018, the brand collaborated on an exhibition called ''Burning Planet'' with South Korean rapper,

Song Mino Song Min-ho (; born March 30, 1993), better known by the stage name Mino, is a South Korean rapper, actor and producer. After a stint in the two-year ballad group BoM from 2011 to 2013, he joined YG Entertainment, leading to his debut in 2014 wi ...

Winner Winner(s) or The Winner(s) may refer to: * Champion, the victor in a game or contest *The successful social class in winner and loser culture Film * ''The Winner'' (1926 film), an American silent film starring Billy Sullivan * ''The Winner'' ...

. In 2019, the brand collaborated with Chinese technology company

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

and released

smartglasses Smartglasses or smart glasses are eye or head-worn wearable computers that offer useful capabilities to the user. Many smartglasses include displays that add information alongside or to what the wearer sees. Alternatively, smartglasses are some ...

. In 2020, the brand collaborated with singer

Jennie Kim Jennie Kim (; born January 16, 1996), known mononymously as Jennie, is a South Korean singer and rapper. Born and raised in South Korea, Jennie studied in New Zealand for five years before returning to South Korea in 2010. She debuted as a me ...

Blackpink Blackpink (, commonly stylized in all caps or as BLɅϽKPIИK) is a South Korean girl group formed by YG Entertainment, consisting of members Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa. The group debuted in August 2016 with their single album ''Square ...

to release the ''Jentle Home'' collection, and Chinese-Canadian singer and rapper

Kris Wu Wu Yi Fan (, ; born 6 November 1990), known professionally as Kris Wu, is a Canadian former rapper, singer, actor and model, and convicted serial rapist. He is a former member of South Korean-Chinese boy band Exo and its subgroup Exo-M under SM Ent ...

for the release of the ''Gentle Wu'' collection. In 2022, the brand released a second collection with Kim, called the ''Jentle Garden'' collection. A mobile game was developed in promotion of the collaboration, while pop-up stores were opened in five cities: Seoul, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai.

Clientele

The brand's celebrity customers include Beyonce,

Rihanna Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, Rihanna auditioned for American record producer Evan Rogers who invited her to the ...

Gigi Hadid Jelena Noura "Gigi" Hadid ( ; born April 23, 1995) is an American model and television personality. In November 2014, she made her debut in the Top 50 Models ranking at Models.com. In 2016, she was named International Model of the Year by the ...

Susan Sarandon Susan Abigail Sarandon (; née Tomalin; born October 4, 1946) is an American actorMcCabe, Bruce"Susan Sarandon, the 'actor'" ''Boston Globe''. April 17, 1981. Retrieved January 21, 2021. and activist. She is the recipient of various accolades, ...

Billie Eilish Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell ( ; born December 18, 2001) is an American singer-songwriter. She first gained public attention in 2015 with her debut single " Ocean Eyes", written and produced by her brother Finneas O'Connell, with whom ...

, and

.EYEWEAR LABEL GENTLE MONSTER'S GALLERY STORE LANDS IN L.A.
Ingrid Schmidt, ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'', 9/29/2017

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.gentlemonster.com/
@gentlemonster
on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

LVMH brands Retail companies established in 2011 Retail companies of South Korea Eyewear brands of South Korea South Korean brands Sunglasses Design companies established in 2011 Manufacturing companies established in 2011 Companies based in Seoul South Korean companies established in 2011