Gentle Monster

Gentle Monster (, stylized in all caps) is a South Korean sunglasses and optical glasses brand founded by Hankook Kim in Seoul in 2011. As of April 2018, the company has 41 directly operated stores worldwide, including in Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Retail spaces Gentle Monster employs 6 people to design its eyewear products and 60 people to design the store visuals. Its products are exhibited like museum pieces in "an immersive and experiential offline shopping experience." For example, in May through August 2016 its New York City flagship store was turned into an underwater experience creates with aquarium designer Justin Muir and glass sculptor Ivan Lee Mora, influenced by the French film Le Grand Bleu. In February 2021, Gentle Monster opened a new space, Haus Dosan, to present the brand's direction in retail. Haus Dosan also carries cosmetics brand Tamburins and has on-site dessert cafe Nudake. History Serial entrepreneur Jae W Oh invested about $100,000 in 2012 and Gentle Monster began producing frames in Daegu, which had been a manufacturing hub for Luxottica, and China, since acetate frames are illegal to produce in South Korea. 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.