Gentle Monster (Korean: 젠틀몬스터, stylized in all caps) is a South Korean brand of luxury sunglasses and eyeglasses founded in 2011. Gentle Monster is owned by parent company IICOMBINED, which also operates the fragrance brand Tamburins, dessert brand NUDAKE, headwear brand ATiiSSU, and tableware brand Nuflaat.
As of 2026, Gentle Monster operates 84 stores worldwide, and its products are available through over 450 retailers in 30 countries.
At Google I/O 2026, Samsung and Google showed intelligent eyewear designs co-created with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.
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Retail spaces
Gentle Monster's retail spaces incorporate iconic large-scale installations, sculptures, and themed environments. Its parent company IICOMBINED launched the HAUS retail concept in 2021 with HAUS DOSAN in Seoul and HAUS SHANGHAI, followed by HAUS NOWHERE SHENZHEN in 2024.
Robotic and kinetic sculptures have appeared in several Gentle Monster stores. The London flagship featured martial-arts-themed robots that were activated every three minutes. HAUS DOSAN featured The Probe, a six-legged robot developed over more than a year by Gentle Monster's Robotics Lab. At HAUS SHANGHAI, a robotic face created by the lab took a year to develop.
In 2025, the company opened HAUS NOWHERE SEOUL, a mixed-use headquarters and retail complex in Seoul that houses Gentle Monster alongside Tamburins, ATiiSSU, NUDAKE, and Nuflaat.
In December 2025, HAUS NOWHERE BANGKOK opened at Iconsiam as the fifth location in the series. It includes a Gentle Monster store and the first Tamburins flagship in Southeast Asia.
History
Serial entrepreneur Jae Wook 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 oversized frames that are much larger than those by Western brands because its Asian clientele prefer frames that create the image of a smaller face.
In 2013 and 2014, Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun wore Gentle Monster lenses on My Love From the Star, which increased 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. Its second US store opened in downtown Los Angeles in October 2017. French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH invested $60 million for a 7% stake in the company in September 2017.
In 2025, Google was reported to have agreed to invest approximately $100 million for a 4% stake in Gentle Monster as part of its partnership with the company to develop Android XR smart glasses, which were expected to launch in 2026.
Pricing
On average, a pair of sunglasses or glasses ranges from $200 to $300 depending on frames, lenses, and prescription. Prices do fluctuate and can be as high as $500.
Marketing and collaborations
Items are all limited edition. Once sold out, restocks or repeat items are not guaranteed.
Gentle Monster has collaborated with a variety of designers and celebrities over the years to produce special collections. In 2016, the brand partnered with Danish designer Henrik Vibskov, Hood by Air, and Opening Ceremony. Actress Tilda Swinton designed three pairs of sunglasses with the brand in February 2017 and appeared in an accompanying ad campaign video. That year also saw a collaboration with Dutch furniture designer Marcel Wanders, the founder of Moooi, as well as a showing at New York Fashion Week.
In 2018, the brand collaborated on the Burning Planet exhibition with South Korean rapper Song Mino of Winner. The following year, Gentle Monster released smartglasses in collaboration with Chinese technology company Huawei.
In 2020, the brand collaborated with singer Jennie Kim of Blackpink to release the Jentle Home collection, and the Canadian former rapper Kris Wu for the release of the Gentle Wu collection. The brand has since released two more collections with Kim, in 2022 (Jentle Garden) and 2024 (Jentle Salon).
In 2023, the brand collaborated with Chinese singer Cai Xukun to release his Crystal Clear collection. An event app was developed for the collaboration which was available in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Dubai, Singapore, Japan, and the United States, with pop-ups organised in Shanghai and Beijing.
In 2024, Gentle Monster collaborated with French luxury fashion house Maison Margiela on the "2024 Maison Margiela x Gentle Monster" collection. The same year, Gentle Monster collaborated with the video game Tekken 8, launching the "Gentle Monster x Tekken 8" collection inspired by characters from the game.
In March 2025, Gentle Monster and Maison Margiela released their third collaborative eyewear collection, which comprised 20 designs.
