Meet Gentle Monster Fusing K-Pop Excitement With Immersive Retail In Luxury Eyewear
Courtesy of Gentle Monster
K-pop stars have become the new darlings in luxury fashion. Blackpink power performers – Lisa, Jennie, Rosé and Jisoo – double as power ambassadors for brands like Celine, Chanel, Saint Laurent, Dior, Bulgari, Cartier, Tiffany, and Calvin Klein.
And the BTS boys take the stage for brands including Fred Joaillier, Bottega Veneta, Louis Vuitton and Valentino. Among the other notable K-pop pairings are Jay Park x Gucci, G-Dragon x Chanel, Changyeol x Prada and Teayang x Loewe.
Whether building their own K-pop brands – estimated to contribute $5 billion to South Korea’s economy – or helping luxury brands build their own, creating brands with global appeal is part of South Korea’s cultural DNA, reports INSEAD professor David Dubois in a recent Harvard Business Review article entitled “Inside the Success of South Korean Brands.”
“The last two decades have seen South Korea emerge as a cultural powerhouse on the global stage,” he wrote. “But make no mistake – the success of what has become a key geopolitical asset is not the result of luck. It is the result of two decades of effective strategy and execution that have given birth to some of the most attractive brands in the world: the K-brands.”
Chief among the K-brands that have taken the world by storm is the luxury eyewear brand Gentle Monster, a part of South Korea’s iiCombined.
Gentle Monster On The World Stage
Now with 78 flagship stores in 13 countries worldwide, including seven in the U.S. following this summer’s opening at the American Dream Mall in New Jersey, plus being carried by around 200+ retail partners such as Selfridges, iiCombined generated an estimated $443 million in revenues last year and grew 48% over 2022, according to the Chosun Daily.`
Gentle Monster is helped by competing in one of the fastest growing segments in the luxury market, but its nearly 50% growth last year left EssilorLuxottica, Kering Eyewear, and even Warby Parker in the dust, up 7%, 38% and 12% respectively.
Gentle Monster frames are favored by a who’s who of style icons, including Beyoncé, Rihana, Gigi Hadid, Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, Susan Sarandon, Pharrell, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, Madonna and Billie Eilish.
Yet what’s most noteworthy about Gentle Monster is its entirely new take on retail. Its stores look nothing like any eyeglass store you’ve ever seen. Case in point is the new American Dream store where a mini-herd of animated rare white buffaloes greet visitors.
Each Gentle Monster store is unique, combining art exhibitions, 3D sculptures and other artistic elements that reflect founder, CEO and creative director Hankook Kim’s belief that “retail is driven by human’s curiosity.”
What could be more curiosity-inspiring than seeing a buffalo “roaming” on the second floor of the luxury wing in the American Dream Mall? Every Gentle Monster store similarly captivates shoppers’ attention, inviting them in to discover, explore, learn and share what the brand is all about.
Unlikely Rise To Fame
According to various sources – the company is reticent when dealing with the press – founder Hankook, who is known as “Mr. Kim” by his team, was running English-speaking educational camps for children in South Korea when he caught the creative bug and launched Gentle Monster in 2011.
The brand name derives from what he described as the dual nature of humans. “The paradoxical nature of the brand name reflects the brand’s values. As all humans do in nature, there exists a certain duality within me: the gentle and the monster.”
The split personality of the brand is reflected in designs that are comfortable and wearable (i.e., Gentle) and have attitude and distinctive style (i.e., Monster).
Courtesy of Gentle Monster
The company offers both sunglasses and prescription frames for adults and kids, priced around $250 up to $500.
Serial entrepreneur Jae Wook Oh was an early investor in 2012, putting in around $100,000 to help the company begin production in Daegu, formerly a manufacturing hub for Luxottica.
Originally the company hoped Luxottica would carry its frames in their stores, but that door remained shut so it went the direct-to-consumer route instead, creating a monster-sized headache for Luxottica and the rest of the eyewear industry.
By 2017 it caught the attention of LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton which ponied up $60 million for a 7 % stake in the company, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Today the company is valued at over $1 billion and was named as the “next-generation Korean luxury stock” by eBest Investment and Securities.
Pushing The Boundaries Of Experiential Retail
The paradoxical nature of the brand is reflected in its retail spaces which “refuse to remain as mere eyewear stores,” the company states. It employs more spatial retail designers than it does product designers.
Courtesy of Gentle Monster
Besides Gentle Monster’s riveting flagship stores, it is also exploring what it terms “Future Retail” in its Haus model. The company explains, “‘Future retail’ defies stereotypical notions of commercial space by inciting emotional provocation in visitors. Haus aims to deliver an unprecedented cultural experience.”
Gentle Monster Haus Shanghai is described as an “über store” with over 35,000 square feet of space on four floors and includes art installations throughout. Gentle Monster Haus Dosan in Seoul also showcases Gentle Monster’s spinoff brands Tamburins in cosmetics and Nudake cafe, known for its desserts.
And Gentle Monster has teamed up with Beijing’s SKP luxury department store to reimagine the department store as a destination that combines art, technology and fashion. The overarching theme is to explore the “digital-analog future” of the store.
“Rather than the ordinary experience of walking through myriads of products and brands, Gentle Monster created a surreal space that places customers in the past imagined by the future,” the company explains.
Immersive Retail Lessons From South Korea
Professor Dubois contends that Western brands and retailers have much to learn from South Korea and spotlights Gentle Monster as a prime example.
He calls Gentle Monster “the perfect retail immersion storm” with its “eye-catching, highly instagrammable installations that make visitors feel as if they’re stepping into an art gallery,” or even a futuristic museum, definitely not a store.
“In today’s world, where the most valued brands are those that help consumers build and develop their identities, the South Korean textbook is rich in many teachings,” he concludes. “By focusing on the role of the senses, brand embodiment and storytelling, other business can devise an immersive strategy to growth their appeal and reinforce their competitive advantage.”
Note: Updated the number of Gentle Monster flagship stores from originally published at 65 stores to 78 and stockist retail partners from 450 to 200+ @ 7:30 a.m. September 11.
