Apgujeong,
Where It Smells Like Glamour,
Cake, and Cigarettes
(or where vape machines glow like high-end boutiques)
It’s there, frozen on the back of your mind, lingering on the edge of your tongue, vivid and bright, like a memory, photographed sharply, a moment stuck in front of your eyes, and yet… You cannot seem to catch the right threads, unable to pull them into solid words that would express what exactly made you so obsessed with this place.
Apgujeong, located within the sprawling area of Gangnam, combines sophisticated romance, East Asian allure, and a dramatic play of light. Street lights, glowing storefronts, and neon signs mingle together, creating an interplay of light and shadow, where retro greens mix with the cool blue glow of the Internet. There’s an almost European feel to it—subtle but present—in the short buildings, narrow streets, and balconies, with people peeking down from the heights of their existence. We even caught a glimpse of a wedding happening on one of the rooftops.
The Gangnam district, in general, is a place of contrasts, made up of several neighborhoods. One of them is the masculine Gangnam-gu, with shops selling expensive cars, tailored suits, golf gear, and—somehow—fishing equipment. It’s minimal and geometric—a district designed for men, where cars pass by like Formula 1 racers, competing in speed.
At the same time, tucked into the depths of Gangnam lies Apgujeong, with its understated opulence and quiet but expressive luxury.
And in the depths of Apgujeong stands Haus Dosan: an imposing grey block building with no windows and possibly only one door. Built in the spitting image of Bauhaus, Haus Dosan houses all three brands of Gentle Monster, including the glasses store, Tamburins with its perfumes and the “fantasy-inspired” dessert café Nudake—yet another treat for the thematic café lover.
Haus Dosan in Apgujeong opened its doors to the public in 2021. In their statement, the Gentle Monster team said that they aimed to create a space focused on “conveying new emotions by eliminating the typical functions and features from a standard retail store.”
It’s truly unconventional. 3D installations blend seamlessly with digital spaces, and robots—eerily realistic or realistically eerie—are woven into the product storytelling. If it wasn’t obvious, Gentle Monster even has a full robotics team.
Despite its surreal atmosphere—massive heads staring you down with spinning eyes, sculptures moving overhead, and an underground café where holographic faces eat beside you—Gentle Monster manages to feel inviting. Unlike more exclusive, almost intimidating stores like Visual Aid Club, Thug Club, or even the Comme des Garçons flagship, Gentle Monster, for all its strangeness, still feels gentle, with arms stretched in a welcoming embrace.
“They [Seoulians] are really skillful in creating this image. Whether it’s in K-dramas, shops, or music,” Kat tells me, reflecting on the seemingly perfect, polished image at the heart of K-culture.
Kat came to Korea to study illustration, initially drawn by the country’s gentle, curated beauty—like the cushioned blush tones lining the shelves of Fwee storefronts, whose exteriors mirror that same “cushionated” softness.
“People here have this desire—for everything to be beautiful, the more the better,” she told me, trying to capture her equally affectionate and frustrated feelings for the city. “You go into stores, and it’s everywhere—those pretty covers, the printed matter. People really care about this stuff.”
Being someone who finds poetry in the mundane, who sees romance in the simplest corners of life, Kat fused into Seoul’s creative landscape, soaking in the “fleur” of the culture—the silk ruffled allure behind the heavy curtain of art and design insurgency.
Our conversation kept circling back to the idea of experience—the care and intention with which people in Seoul approach every aspect of their surroundings. “You walk in, and it smells a certain way—different, special. Everything is planned out, how it should be placed, smell, the lighting, what you need to feel,” she said.
Though she came to illustrate, Kat found herself increasingly drawn to fashion over time. She was captivated by the minimalist simplicity of colors contrasted with the brutalist abundance of forms and silhouettes—a combination that, as many of the people I spoke with noted, defines much of the underground K-fashion scene.
Vera, a New York-based fashion designer, points out a similar quality. “I think they’ve gotten a little bit more creative because they’re not doing prints and patterns,” she says. “They’re doing holes and things…drapery—stuff that makes it different and unique.”
Instead of relying on bright colors or busy prints, many Korean brands focus on form, structure, and embellishment, experimenting with hardware and metal (like Thug Club) or leaning into the gorpcore aesthetic—your basic hiking outerwear with a hip stylish twist (San San Gear, Cayl). It’s less about loudness and chaos, more about deliberate experimentation within restraint. “You still mostly see your basic, core colors, but they play so much with silhouettes and embellishments that it feels fresh, even without colorful patterns,” Vera concludes.
Ader Error, another standout around Dosan, embraces this philosophy. Their flagship is inside a tall red-brick building—now with windows, but with ones that look like they were cut out with a bulldozer. The store combines multiple interior styles: from metal and sterile like a hospital’s hall to the stone and ancient, with a stained glass window and a…pool? A body of water with a structure that looks like a spaceship right inside of the store. Definitely worth a visit.
Curious to learn more about how brands use interior design to build their narratives, I spoke with Lena, who works at Ecru in Gangnam. The store hosts a mix of Japanese and American designers, but as Lena explained, Ecru isn’t just about clothes—it’s about creating an atmosphere.
The store mostly carries items from Japanese and American designers, but as Lena explained, Ecru isn’t just about clothes—it’s about shaping an atmosphere. She told me the owner of the store is deeply invested in interior design, and while it doesn’t have life-size animatronics or working fountains, it still feels intentional. The space has a strong vintage feel—a kind of faded Western aesthetic that feels both deliberate and cinematic. It’s no surprise that many customers, upon entering, ask if Ecru is a vintage store.
When I struggled to find a good picture of the interior, Lena explained that photographs aren’t allowed inside—a rule aimed at protecting the originality of design.