soft monster stages a surreal plant landscape
Gentle monster launches the Veggie 2026 collection with a range of eye-catching retail facilities that bring large rural landscapes into shopping environments.
Debuting in Los Angeles, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing and Bangkok, the pop-ups, where oversized tomatoes, broccoli-like creatures and plush vegetable characters take over retail floors, extend the Korean eyewear brand’s long-standing strategy of combining product releases with large-scale releases.
At the center of each installation stands an oversized tomato sculpture surrounded by what Gentle Monster calls “Veggiemon,” a cast of playful plant creatures rendered at multiple scales. Broccoli-like figures, mushrooms with exaggerated mouths, eggplants, radishes and beet forms occupy earthen planting beds, turning the retail floor into a stylized farm. The installations use soft textures, plush surfaces and expansive proportions to create an environment that feels closer to a theme park set than a conventional product launch.
all images courtesy of Gentle Monster
a giant broccoli-like character anchors the installation
While the project continues the of the brand established approach to immersive retail design, its importance lies in how contemporary fashion and accessories brands increasingly use spatial experiences to create cultural exposure. The installations act as destinations in themselves, encouraging visitors to engage with the collection through photography and social media.
The pop-ups also include an interactive photo booth that turns visitors into their own versions of the Veggiemon characters. This participatory element extends the work beyond the visual spectacle, inviting the audience to temporarily inhabit the imaginary world of the collection.
The Veggie Collection features ten collapsible eyewear designs that draw from the shapes, colors and stems of vegetables, translating organic silhouettes into structural details and compact frames. The glasses serve as the conceptual starting point for the larger spatial experience, where vegetables become architectural-scale characters inhabiting an imaginary rural setting.
a giant broccoli-inspired character set up outside the pop-up
Oversized vegetable sculptures create a fantastic indoor rural landscape
Gentle Monster stages vegetable collection in a large-scale experiential environment
Plush textures transform products into cartoon-like architectural figures
giant vegetables become retail characters
the installation combines retail display, character design and immersive environments
