Maison Margiela x Gentle Monster, the fourth collaboration between the Parisian house and the Seoul-based brand: 68 pieces, a film by Alex Prager and one simple idea, undoing a pair of glasses to make it more legible.
A pair of glasses is one of the few objects worn at the centre of the face. When Maison Margiela and Gentle Monster take one apart, you see it at once. Their fourth joint collection, launched on 29 October 2026 under the title “Deconstruction”, comprises 68 pieces: 43 sunglasses and 25 optical frames. The three earlier editions had 11, 17 and 20. The change of scale is the first thing to understand.
Since 2023, the two brands have released a joint edition on a regular basis.
| Edition | Release | Pieces |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Early 2023 | 11 |
| 2nd | March 2024 | 17 |
| 3rd | 6 March 2025 | 20 (8 sunglasses, 12 optical) |
| 4th, Deconstruction | 29 October 2026 | 68 (43 sunglasses, 25 optical) |
Going from 20 to 68 pieces means leaving the capsule behind for a full line, with its quiet shapes and its extreme pieces. The split confirms it: optical frames made up 60% of the 2025 edition (12 of 20) and now account for about 37% (25 of 68, our own calculation). The collection moves towards sunglasses, where volume and the mask effect have the most room.
Model numbering follows the same thread. The editions carried MM0xx codes in 2023, MM1xx in 2024 and MM2xx in 2025; Gentle Monster’s online store now lists MM3xx models, from MM301 to MM325 on the pages we consulted. The 68 pieces in the press release seem to count colourways: a single model exists in several finishes (black, tortoiseshell, colours).
Maison Margiela was founded in Paris in 1988 and describes itself as a couture house that re-examines definitions of beauty and of how clothing is made, treating the silhouette as a field of study. Gentle Monster, founded in Seoul in 2011, built its identity on experimental products and spaces. Deconstruction is where the two methods meet: one works through tailoring, the other through set design and objects.
The press release describes a selection that “elevates familiar shapes while distorting others”. It is a precise phrase. Nothing is invented from scratch. The glasses stay recognisable, then a detail shifts them: an exaggerated volume, a flattened element, a twisted temple.
The oversized models play on deliberately excessive volumes. According to the house, they hide the face from others while widening the wearer’s field of view. The principle is simple: withdraw from other people’s gaze without losing any of your own. The mask motif runs through the house’s history, and the 2025 capsule already pushed it as far as a rimless frame inspired by L’Incognito.
At the other extreme, narrow frames with raised angles are wrapped in taut leather, in the spirit of the house’s Second Skin concept. Leather already appeared in the 2024 edition, on a few frames. Here it becomes a way of building the shape, not just a covering.
The 65 front-view packshots tell a more nuanced story than the press release. Most frames are in acetate, in black, tortoiseshell, olive, amber or cream, on compact ovals and softened cat-eyes: almost quiet shapes, set apart from the classic only by a detail of proportion or angle. The distortion is concentrated in a small number of pieces: wraparound, massive sunglasses; a gold oval optical frame whose rim opens up and extends into a wire; an extremely thin silver metal rectangle. The still lifes push the logic further, like this oversized tortoiseshell sunglass on broken glass, the four white stitches clearly visible on the temple.
Front-view packshots: a straight-on view shows neither the temples nor the leather.
A front view shows neither the temples nor the leather, so caution is needed. But it suggests a two-speed collection: an everyday wearable base, and a few radical gestures that carry the argument.
The house signature stays on the temples throughout the collection: four white stitches. On the slim models, a new marking makes them appear to float above the edge of the frame, as if no longer attached to the object. A familiar mark detaching itself from its support.
The campaign is entrusted to American photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager. Her short film follows a woman who has ten minutes to reach someone. She runs across a city that never stops changing, and every character she passes wears a different silhouette from the collection.
Maison Margiela x Gentle Monster campaign, 2026. Photography: Alex Prager.
The stills extend the film: a dense crowd, faces isolated in motion, contrasting light. The glasses become what sets each individual apart within the mass, while also shielding them from it. It is another face of deconstruction: identity recomposed with every encounter.
The collection comes with pop-up spaces that opened on 29 October in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Paris, in Le Marais. The house describes them as the spatial extension of the theme: unstable, irregular forms and an aesthetic of the unfinished.
In Seoul, a launch event brings together choreographer and creative director Damien Jalet and artist Ian McMahon. Their performance translates deconstruction into movement: bodies, space, object and light collide and recompose, undoing existing structures to build new ones. That the collection is also conceived as choreography says a lot about the project’s ambition: it is not only about selling shapes but about showing a process.
Earlier editions staged oppositions: classicism and futurism, human and cyborg. Deconstruction does something else. It returns to method rather than narrative, that is, to how an object is made and unmade, and it does so at a scale that makes it read as a position rather than a style exercise.
On price, Gentle Monster’s US store lists frames from $420 to $500 on the references we consulted (the page showed only part of the range). The only model explicitly named “Leather” is $500.
To place this edition, compare it with the 2025 capsule, and with how these glasses are already being worn, from Shazad Latif in Paris to the masked sunglasses of the Margiela runway show.
It is the fourth collaboration between Maison Margiela and Gentle Monster, launched on 29 October 2026. It brings together 68 pieces, including 43 sunglasses and 25 optical frames, built around deconstruction: familiar shapes elevated or distorted, oversized volumes, flattened elements.
In scale: 68 pieces against 11, 17 and 20 for the first three editions. Optical frames also weigh less: about 37% of the collection, against 60% in 2025.
Shapes remain recognisable but are shifted: exaggerated volumes that hide the face while widening the field of view, narrow frames wrapped in leather, flattened or altered elements. The house’s four white stitches, its signature on the temples, also appear in a floating version on the slim models.
On Gentle Monster’s US store, the references we consulted are listed between $420 and $500, depending on the model. Prices vary by market and reference, so check the Gentle Monster and Maison Margiela websites.
Alex Prager. Her short film follows a woman who has ten minutes to reach someone and meets, in a city in motion, characters who each wear a different silhouette from the collection.
In eight pop-up spaces opened on 29 October 2026: Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Paris (Le Marais). In Seoul, a performance by Damien Jalet and Ian McMahon accompanies the launch.
Sources: FashionUnited · Numéro Netherlands · The Impression · Mille World · Hypebeast (2024 edition) · JT Dapper (2025 edition) · Gentle Monster, Maison Margiela 2026 collection · Maison Margiela press kit.