Gentle Monster
Gentle Monster's Smart Glasses Star in a Surreal Short Film
Gentle Monster enters intelligent eyewear with a Jonathan Glazer film starring Joaquin Phoenix, as the brand takes on a smart glasses market led by Meta.
A teaser built on atmosphere, not specifications
A hotel guest checks in somewhere unfamiliar. The corridors lead to strangers, then to situations that stop making sense, and the line between sleeping and waking quietly dissolves. At the end of a red-lit passage he confronts a group of mysterious figures and discovers a way to understand them through a pair of glasses.
That is the premise of the campaign film for Gentle Monster’s first intelligent eyewear collection. The short is directed by Jonathan Glazer and stars Joaquin Phoenix, and a teaser has now been released ahead of the full film later this month.
Technology told through story
What stands out is how little the film behaves like a product demonstration. Rather than listing features, the narrative lets the eyewear do its work in the background: the glasses become the means by which the salesman makes contact with figures he cannot otherwise reach.
The brand frames the campaign around the relationship between people and technology, and the storytelling reflects that. The glasses are presented as a route to connection in unexpected moments, not as a gadget to be admired. It is a deliberate choice for a label whose reputation rests on image-making as much as on frames.
When you can see it
- Full film: released later this month
- Pre-orders: open on 12 November through the brand’s website
- Public preview: New York, 13 to 23 November, with registration available online
From Seoul to the smart glasses aisle
Gentle Monster was founded in Seoul and places itself in what it calls alternative luxury eyewear. Experimental shapes, art-led campaigns and immersive flagship stores have built that position, and the company describes the intelligent line as a continuation of the same thinking, bringing fashion and technology together rather than treating them as separate categories.
That framing matters, because the category it is entering is crowded and increasingly defined by whoever controls the platform underneath the frames.
The market the collection arrives into
Smart glasses have grown quickly over the past year, and Meta dominates. Global shipments of smart glasses without displays rose 167 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2026, reaching around 2.25 million units, according to IDC.
Meta, which produces its AI glasses with EssilorLuxottica — the owner of Ray-Ban and Oakley — held 69.2 per cent of the wider market for smart glasses and headsets. EssilorLuxottica identified that partnership as the main driver of its 11 per cent sales growth in the first quarter. IDC expects shipments of display-free smart glasses to reach 13.6 million units in 2026.
Big tech’s route into eyewear
Faced with that lead, large technology firms have looked to fashion eyewear labels for credibility in design and retail. Google bought a 4 per cent stake in Gentle Monster in June 2025 for around 100 million US dollars. The investment was tied to glasses running Google’s AI and Android XR platform, developed with Samsung, with Gentle Monster leading the design work.
For a brand built on spectacle and store design, the move into intelligent eyewear is a logical next step — one it is introducing with a film about confusion, communication and the odd places where the two meet. Pre-orders opening on 12 November will show whether the audience follows the story all the way to the checkout.
