Blue Elephant: The ₩50,000 Sunglasses That Ended Up in Court (and Why People Still Line Up)

Walk through Myeongdong or Hongdae and you’ll pass at least one storefront with a blue elephant on the sign. Inside, it’s usually packed with foreign visitors, and there’s a line at the register. Sunglasses for a little over ₩50,000 — and in the photos people post to Instagram, they’re hard to tell apart from the ₩300,000 ones.

That “hard to tell apart” part is exactly what landed this brand in court.

What happened in six years?

Blue Elephant launched in January 2019 as an online-only eyewear brand. In its early days it skipped optical-shop distribution and sold only through its own channels, then from 2023–2024 began opening stores, starting with Seongsu Seoul Forest and spreading to Hannam, Yeonnam, Hongdae, Bukchon, Dosan Park, and Myeongdong.

The growth engine was clear: price × space × tourists. Stores fitted out far more stylishly than an ordinary optical shop, prices that don’t hurt, and YouTube/TikTok lists of “what to buy when you visit Korea.” For foreign visitors it became something close to a souvenir.

So why was the CEO arrested?

The short version: in February 2026, a court issued an arrest warrant on charges that the company copied rival Gentle Monster’s product designs and sold them — a violation of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.

It began in December 2024. IICOMBINED, the company behind Gentle Monster, filed a criminal complaint alleging its product designs and store-space concepts had been copied. The tech-design special judicial police under the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the patent crime unit of the Daejeon District Prosecutors’ Office then opened an investigation.

The most striking detail to come out of the investigation was that there was no design team. According to prosecutors, Blue Elephant had no in-house design function; it pasted its own logo onto photos of Gentle Monster products, then sent overseas manufacturers a production order noting only colors and quantities. No blueprints, no renderings, no detailed dimensions. Another company’s product photos effectively served as the design spec.

The alleged copying didn’t stop at the products. It extended to the glasses pouch design and even the space concept of the Myeongdong flagship that opened in 2024. It also emerged that Blue Elephant had registered, under its own name, a pouch design Gentle Monster first showed in 2021 — prompting IICOMBINED to file for invalidation of that registration.

What does Blue Elephant say?

The company’s position has been consistent: it doesn’t admit to copying. Three points stand out.

• Structural similarity is unavoidable. Glasses inevitably resemble each other because of ergonomic constraints, and the company argues the investigation didn’t fully account for that.
• Using references is industry practice. The new CEO drew a line: yes, they referenced Gentle Monster, but that’s separate from breaking the law.
• Common shapes of goods aren’t protected. The company argues this on the law’s own terms — the Unfair Competition Prevention Act itself excludes ordinary, generic forms from protection.

The former CEO denied the charges at an April 2026 hearing and was released on bail on July 28. The trial is ongoing, and no verdict has been reached.

What happened to the company after all this?

Here’s the real twist. When a story like this breaks, the brand usually collapses. Blue Elephant went the other way.

📌 Timeline since December 2024

The company put “structural overhaul” front and center. It built its product, space, and content design team up to 19 people, and said it would raise R&D spending from 2% of 2025 revenue to 3% in 2026. The industry read on the private equity bet is that it was on “systems” rather than “growth.”

At the same time, revenue grew 69% in 2025 while operating profit actually shrank sharply — the combined cost of store expansion and legal defense. The controversy didn’t dent sales, but it wasn’t free, either.

So — should you buy one?

That’s a judgment call, and I won’t hand you the answer. But the facts are these.

If you're buying, where should you go?

Short version: the Myeongdong flagship wins on stock and variety. Go to Seongsu or Hannam if you want to see the space.

📍 Open in Naver Map (Myeongdong)

📍 Open in Naver Map (Seongsu)

📍 Open in Naver Map (Hannam)

🕶️ Gentle Monster vs Blue Elephant — what's actually different

What this case will leave behind

The outcome of this trial will decide something bigger than the fate of one sunglasses brand. Fashion has long operated in a gray zone between “reference” and “plagiarism.” Product cycles are so short that registering every design is impractical, which is why most disputes have ended in civil court.

If Korean courts start treating large-scale copying of unregistered designs as a criminal offense, that line could become a reference point well beyond Korea. Conversely, if the “glasses just look alike” defense holds, the protection for unregistered designs narrows again.

Until the answer comes, the line outside the blue elephant stores will probably keep moving.