Meet 'Gentle Monster'š¾
Can you guess what they sell?
Before we start, letās watch this video first. I will recommend you put on a full screen with sounds on š.
What did you see in this video? š Well, it may look like just snapshots of art pieces, feels immersive and experimental, and can be an introduction film for a newly opened gallery. Does it look like a retail space for some everyday product? Probably not.
This is the flagship store of the brand called GENTLE MONSTER.
GENTLE MONSTER is a luxury eyewear brand that has been loved for its unique and unconventional design since its beginning. It also collaborated with many brands and celebrities from the art and fashion scenes - recently Moncler, Son Heung-Min, Alexander Wang, Huawei(š), Fendi and others.
I brought this brand for this weekās inspiration since it is one of the most beloved brands, especially by Gen Z, and its influence is not only staying in Korea but moving forward in APAC and other parts of the world. I will talk about their space, face and family!
The Space
The most powerful experience of GENTLE MONSTER comes from its physical retail space. According to their website, they value 'Unexpected Wonder', 'High-end Valueness', 'Brands, made of experimental differentiation'. And these values are very well presented in their space, especially in one of their space in Seoul, Haus Dosan.
Haus Dosan is the activation of GENTLE MONSTERās recent new concept called āHausā, which incorporated the experiential creativity and vision for the retail of GENTLE MONSTER, also combining the three brands into one experience(will explain more about āthese three brandsā later!)
They worked with several global artists, such as Fredrik Heyman, Jonas Lindstroem, Chulan Kwak, Mercedes Vicente, and Casper Kang to fill a four-story building in Seoul. Haus Dosan doesn't show the products much to visitors but makes them experience and really 'feel' about its brand in an immersive and almost overwhelming way.
Frustrated by lack of remarkable brand store we decide to make a never seen before speciality retail space. By our valueness of high-end experimentation spritual, we have construct our own brand's PSSCS(Product, Space, Styling, Culture&Campaign, Service) identity. in consequence, we realized the different dimension branding of the most evolved retail company. We develope it and change it more and higher continuously. And our brands and members work in creativity and humanity for the people who feels the unexpected wonder fluttering with us.
(From the iicombined company website)
The Face
The recent āfaceā of Gentle Monster is Jennie from Black Pink. If you havenāt heard about her yet, she is a member of a K-pop girl group called Black Pink. She has 71.4M followers on Instagram, is the muse of Chanel, and has been cast on the new HBO series āThe Idolā with Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd.
I think itās a very clever decision to have her as the face of the brand, not only of her influences on the younger generation but also her unique position on the fashion and art scene with her āone-and-onlyā aura. GENTLE MONSTER also worked with her as an artist, with campaigns called āJentle Homeā and āJentle Gardenā; every campaign and product with her sold out immediately.
Gentle Monster and BLACKPINK's Jennie Launch Pop-Up Dreamscapes - HYPEBEAST
And now she has appeared in the recent brand film for Tamburins, another brand I will explain soon, it makes more bonding between GENTLE MONSTER and other brands in a successfully positive way.
The Family
The company behind GENTLE MONSTER is IICOMBINED Co., Ltd. They are expanding their presence among Gen Z audiences with several brands in different categories. They hadnāt talked about their relationship when they began, but now we can see its effort to combine these three brandsā images and create a more integrated and powerful voice.
NUDAKE
NUDAKE is a fantasy-inspired dessert brand in Seoul. I remember the day when NUDAKE opened their first store in Seoul. There had been an insanely long waiting line outside the store a few weeks from their first day. Their patisseries have gone viral rapidly because of their eerie and weirdly attractive colours and design. One of their signature menus is āPeak Cakeā, which you can see in the video below.
According to the interview of Ha Ye-jin, the general director of NUDAKE, a small in-house project group of GENTLE MONSTER has tried to incorporate F&B in the projects. Such as The exhibition project āBurning Planetā with Mino(K-POP singer/artist) in 2018 and the āGENTLE X FENDIā, a brand collaboration project with luxury brand Fendi in 2019. They became the valuable essence of the start of NUDAKE, and they opened their first spaces in Beijing and Shanghai, China. And finally, in 2021, their first flagship store in Seoul was opened in Haus Dosan.
NUDAKEās physical spaces are also valuable to its brand like GENTLE MONSTER. The way how they present their cake (not in a glass box) and plan their space for customers is very unconventional - with not enough tables, more focus on having void in the space to make customer concentrate on their sweets. Ha Ye-jin explained this: "We chose a direction to make 50 customers satisfied 100%, not 100 customers with a 50% level of satisfactionā.
Tamburins
Tamburins is a sensual artisan cosmetic brand in Seoul. The first time I recognized their presence was the pandemic's beginning. As many of you remember, sanitary products such as facemasks, hand sanitiser and wet wipes suddenly became crucial for everyday life. And Tamburinsā hand sanitiser and hand soap are getting the most attention with their unique and beautiful packaging that can't be found in other products in the same category.
A recent pop-up space that they opened for the launch of perfume has also been trending, especially with their gigantic sculptures and their installation in a very overwhelming way.
What else?
As you can see, GENTLE MONSTER has been expanding its presence with different product categories in an unconventional way. The know-how they learned while launching and growing the first brand Gentle Monster, was used to launch the next two brands. In the process, instead of using the halo of the existing brand, they chose to communicate by enhancing each other's presence separately and then integrating it later.
