Why Gentle Monster Stores Will Make You Rethink Shopping

The product takes a back seat to the experience

Jul 04, 2024

As a kid, I loved going to the department stores with my mom. The floors were shiny and white. The racks gleamed like polished steel. The displays towered above me, handbags in every color.

The salespeople were dressed so sharply that I figured they all must have come straight out of New York City. Where else could you find such fashion?

My mom used Clinique makeup and skincare, and she wasn't one to miss a sale.

Whenever the department stores offered their specials on Clinique products, my mom was there. She knew what she needed to buy to meet the gift with purchase threshold and she was all business.

"If I buy this, I get this gift with purchase?" She'd ask. But she knew. She was ready.

The sweet and informative young saleswoman with hot pink blush and a long, white lab coat would pack my mom's goodies in the store's signature bag, and off we went. We had more errands to run. At home, my mom would sort through the freebies and give me whatever she didn't want. As an eight-year-old, this felt like Christmas.

I loved gift with purchase time at the makeup counter. It was special. However, retail stores have lost their way.

There is Rarely Wonder

The rise in online shopping has led to retailers trying to mimic the online experience. They stack the shelves high and spend all their time optimizing the store's flow. They treasure an expeditious visit above all else.

They've trained their customers to get in and out quickly. Try not to linger; the checkout is up front. Have a nice day.

But this experience sucks.

I shop online for convenience. I shop in a store to vibe. I want to see new colors that hurt my eyeballs. I want to smell that salty, citrusy summer perfume and try to talk myself out of buying it.

I want to shop with my friends and catch up while we:
"Have you seen?"
"OMG, your boss kills me."
and
"Do I need another one of these in turquoise?"

I want the unexpected, and I want inspiration.

One company is pushing all the boundaries of a physical retail space and flipping the idea of shopping. What if shopping wasn't about shopping at all?

Gentle Monster

"Creative fashion eyewear."

That's how Hankook Kim of Gentle Monster describes his company in three words. But it's so much more than that. It's a total sensory experience.

Gentle Monster is a Korean eyewear brand. Its founder isn't just an eyewear designer; he's a visionary who saw a gap in the industry dominated by Luxottica.

If you wear glasses, you probably bought them from a company that Luxottica owns. These brands include Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples, Vogue Eyewear, Arnette, Native Eyewear, and Giorgio Armani. There are many more. The list goes on for a page on their website.

Kim noticed that all these brands only catered to a Western sense of fashion and were uninspired. He wanted styles that he knew people in the East would go wild for, so in 2011, he began designing them. Kim got a pair of his sunglasses featured in a popular film, and the brand began to get noticed.

What is most fascinating about Gentle Monster isn't its origin story, incredible collaborations, or Instagram page—it's the physical retail spaces.

Two robot donkeys face each other at a Gentle Monster store.

What if you walked into a retail store to find two life-size and very life-like robot donkeys standing upon what looks like a laser? Or how about an old woman robot that looks so real you have to look again?

This incredible display is in one of Gentle Monster's stores, but it's only one store. Every store is different.

The company employs an in-house robotics team and nearly one hundred people dedicated to store design. Kim has turned shopping into something else entirely. He’s made it an event.

Every Gentle Monster store has a line around the block. Every store is a museum-level experience. Kim has innovated to create an eyewear company focusing on creativity, collaboration, and community.

People go to Gentle Monster to see the store; shopping for glasses is almost an afterthought. The company's eyewear sells for $250 and up, so a purchase is within reach for many consumers, but a purchase isn't required to visit the store.

As Gentle Monster branches out beyond eyewear, it continues to push boundaries.

Desserts. Because Why Not?

Screenshot of Nudake’s Instagram. Rock, Paper, Scissors event.

Kim introduced art to desserts with his cafe, Nudake.

The brand opened in Beijing in 2019 and its second location in Shanghai one year later. In 2021, Nudake opened in its hometown of South Korea.

Nudake's specialty is beautiful desserts, and their cafe will blow your mind. Oversized croissants decorate the space and are also hidden throughout.
Every dessert is:
extraordinary
beautiful
perfect.

In one of Nudake's locations, if customers play "rock-paper-scissors" with the cashier and win, they get their dessert for free.

C'mon. How cool is that?

The company makes us feel something.

Gentle Monster recorded revenue of over $444 million last year.

Their innovations go beyond our wildest imaginations. Their collaborations, unboxing videos, and Instagram pages are so unique. We're all captivated by it.

Gentle Monster is such a sharp detour from what retail stores have generally become that it's almost unbelievable. How could such wild art and eyewear cause such a phenomenon? Kim's wild art and eyewear tell stories, build communities, and inject fun into our everyday lives.

The company makes us feel something.

Just like that Clinique makeup counter made my mom feel - like she was into something cool and fashionable. She was hip to beautiful makeup and skincare, so she glided through that shiny department store.

Hankook Kim has flipped everything we thought we knew about retail stores. He's made the store the main event and the product secondary. He's thrown efficiency out and invited everyone in to stay for a while.

Gentle Monster has shown us what retail can be.