The Gentle Monster-Fication of Eyewear Is Real
Where Gentle Monster leads, all other glasses-makers follow. The South Korean eyewear brand has set the standard for stylish glasses with fashion-forward designs too good to be relegated solely to sun protection or disguising eye bags (though they do that, too).
Gentle Monster's glasses embody an ultra-camp quality, offering both mega-thin frames and subversively sculptural silhouettes, fearlessly reclaiming once-uncool shapes. It's taken some doing but, now, Gentle Monster has proven its mettle and earned an ardent following, with a gaggle of other eyewear labels focusing their frames on the action.
Where sunglasses once were merely an outfit topper, maybe a luxury flex at most, Gentle Monster's eyewear is sometimes the main attraction.
Its Sailor Moon-inspired bejeweled shades and Central Cee-approved jelly candy glasses are too good to play second-fiddle, as Gentle Monster’s legion of young devotees — and rival eyewear companies — know. Smart partnerships with A-list talent like BLACKPINK's JENNIE and provocative campaigns keep the heat on.
Gentle Monster has even crossed over to Hollywood, with young folks like Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet partial to its edgy offerings. This is not least because Gentle Monster's cache has swelled so much that it regularly partners with labels like Maison Margiela, which once only worked with Berlin glasses company Mykita.
Gentle Monster’s influence seldom manifests as a 1:1 replica, to be clear. It's more of inspiration via aura, as peers adapt Gentle Monster’s Wacky Glasses Energy to their own devices.
Had Gentle Monster not paved the way for weirder shades, in other words, there'd likely be far fewer adventurous sunglasses today.
You can see threads of Gentle Monster's approach in the debut eyewear offering from footwear brand Camper’s high-end Camper Labs imprint, with one pair of silver-pronged frames recalling Gentle Monster's mega-metal renderings.
Bottega Veneta, the reigning champ of woven leather, has created chunky shades with textural intrigue while SUNNEI recently issued some experimental goggle-like shapes.
On the more affordable side, young labels like Our Legacy and Song for the Mute are dabbling with thin metal frames that drop off the rims of the glasses. Even the OG slim sunnies label, Mykita, is quietly releasing sportier styles that feel more progressive, more fashion-savvy.
None of it directly bites off Gentle Monster, necessarily, and Gentle Monster certainly didn't invent thin metal frames nor wacky chunksters. But perhaps due to Gentle Monster's omnipresence, eyewear is really starting to feel Gentle Monster-coded.
Even if you step back and assess the other trends reshaping the eyewear business, like corpcore and the "hot librarian" look's “Bayonetta”-style cat eye and oval silhouettes, you see a throughline.
Said trend cycles laid the groundwork for the TikTok-fueled boom of competing glasses made by other brands, like Miu Miu’s Regard sunglasses and Jacquemus' Capri.
But Gentle Monster had to flex so the hot librarian could sashay.
