Maison Margiela and Gentle Monster's Fourth Eyewear Collection, Out October 29, Takes Its Frames Apart

Maison Margiela and Gentle Monster's fourth eyewear collection lands on Thursday, October 29. Gentle Monster announced it on October 26 with a campaign film by the artist Alex Prager, and gives the launch as 11am Eastern in the US and Canada, 11am KST in Korea, China, Japan and Australia, and 11am GMT in Europe, the UK, the Middle East and everywhere else.

The idea this time is deconstruction. Gentle Monster's page for the collection says it takes familiar eyewear forms and structures apart, with styles that look "crushed and modified, as if frozen midway through fabrication or disassembly", and oversized frames that work as masks enveloping the face.

Gentle Monster

The frames

Gentle Monster's US site already lists the collection: 25 models, MM301 to MM325, in 65 versions across sunglasses and glasses, priced from $400 to $500 and marked "Notify me" until launch. Gentle Monster says pop-up spaces open in eight cities for the collection. The lead image is a pair of fine silver metal frames with one rim broken open and both lenses scratched, which is the brief in one picture. The campaign shows the other end of it: chunky black sunglasses with red lenses, small black ovals and heavy pale frames.

Alex Prager's film

Gentle Monster says the film follows a protagonist through an ever-shifting world, introducing the frames through a crowd of distinct characters, "a dash across the city" slowed down by the people in it, in the words of its post. The music is "Mentally Gone" by SCAM. Gentle Monster frames the campaign the same way as the collection: deconstruction as the start of something rather than an end.

Our read

Deconstruction is what Maison Margiela is best known for, so four collections in, the eyewear has gone to the house's core idea. Last year's chapter, by Gentle Monster's own description, was about a tense interaction between two futuristic, unknown entities; this one lands the same season Glenn Martens' Spring 2027 show played hard against soft on the runway. At $400 to $500 a frame, and listed with prices days before launch, it's being sold as product, not just a campaign.