Gentle Monster's Smart Glasses Open for Pre-Order November 12, With a Joaquin Phoenix Film

Gentle Monster's AI glasses finally have dates. The Korean eyewear label announced, through its Japanese company IICOMBINED JAPAN, on November 6 that pre-orders for its first Intelligent Eyewear collection open on Thursday, November 12, and that a preview open to the public runs in New York from Friday, November 13 to Monday, November 23. Both the pre-orders and visits to the preview are booked through Gentle Monster's online store. Gentle Monster's own post the same day says the collection launches in December.

The same announcement came with the campaign: a teaser for a short film starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Jonathan Glazer. Gentle Monster's release describes a salesman who checks into an unfamiliar hotel and runs into strange people and stranger events until his sense of what's real gives way. At the end of a red-lit corridor he meets beings he can't identify, and through the glasses he understands their words and starts to communicate with them in ways he didn't expect. Gentle Monster's post says the full film is out in mid-November.

Image: Gentle Monster

What the glasses do

The glasses are made with Google and Samsung and run Gemini, Google's assistant. Gentle Monster's page says you reach it by saying "Hey Google" or tapping the frame, and lists questions about what you're looking at, navigation, calls and texts, capture and translation, all without taking out your phone. They pair with Android and iOS phones, last up to nine hours on a charge, and come with a case that holds seven or more further charges.

Two designs have been shown so far: the first at Google I/O, and a second with a clean, rectangular shape. The product page's campaign stars the models Alex Consani and Anok Yai, and Gentle Monster says the debut collection will include more designs than those two.

Image: Gentle Monster

Our read

Getting the director of The Zone of Interest to sell a gadget tells you how Gentle Monster wants these taken: as a fashion object with a film culture around it, not a spec sheet. It's the same instinct behind its Maison Margiela collaborations, now pointed at a category where most frames still look like tech.

What's still missing is the part buyers need. No price has been published, the product page still says only that the glasses launch "this fall in select markets," and neither the page, the release nor the post says which markets those are or which designs open for pre-order on Thursday.