It’s not often that a luxury fashion leader and a technical outerwear giant come together; but when they do, there’s no absence of certainty that the results will be great – spectacular, even. This can be said of the new Dior x Stone Island capsule collection which vehemently respects the time-honed approaches of both brands. “There is a meeting of Monsieur Dior and founder [the late] Massimo Osti’s work for Stone Island in this collection – it is the coming together of ‘obsessives.’ They might have been people from opposite ends of the fashion spectrum – from an haute couture vision to that of military functionality – yet I think they’d recognise something in each other and in what they achieved through clothing,” Kim Jones, artistic director of Dior men’s, says. “Here, in the coming together of contrasting traditions, there’s a new kind of clothing alchemy.”
Included in the 74-piece collection are car coats, fisherman vests, relaxed suiting, ghillie suits, knitwear, shorts, accessories and more; everything constructed with perfection and excellence in mind. Using almost exclusively noble materials – silk especially – a beautiful collision of Parisian haute couture and the Northern Italian mastery of machine processes and functionality emerges. Additional ready-to-wear pieces count T-shirts, macs, and ribbon and pearl embroidered bombers – the capsule’s pièces de résistance.
The “alchemy of colour” plays a key role in the composition of the offering. Stone Island’s signature garment-dyeing technique (created by Osti, who died in 2005) prevails across many of the pieces while the Parisian atelier’s experiments with a completely new technique of handmade garment-dyed embroidery build upon it. The complex embroidered elements, which appear across outerwear and knits in particular, pull from Dior’s AW55 and SS13 haute couture archives.
Elsewhere, archetypal Stone Island colourways and archival silhouettes are given a new, and intense shot of life. An archival field jacket in Raso Gommato (a wind and water-resistant material originating in the military and that’s now one of Stone Island’s most historic and definitive fabrics) from SS88 that was initially designed in cotton and rubber for instance, is now transposed with cotton silk and embossed, aged-effect leather.
The historic references don’t stop there, however. A ‘double pleat’ tailoring motif stemming from Dior’s SS52 couture collection crops up across the offering while internal structures are inspired by Stone Island’s signature ‘Dutch Rope’ system which allows for attaching and detaching. Now stitched in a silk-based version of Dior’s trademark cannage, a crossover logo combines Dior’s written logo with Stone Island’s iconic insignia and compass rose badge.
For shoes there are hybridised boots and derbys inspired by thick-sole climbing shoes, as well as track-sole trainers featuring Dior Oblique stitching. And for bags, a rounded leather trunk etched with Stone Island’s distinctive compass rose is produced by the family-owned Maison Sennelier (which supplied materials to some of the greatest artists of our time including Picasso, Cézanne and Delaunay). While the technical specificity of the bag is impressive, it’s also a unique styling piece, and will be available in smaller, crossbody variations when the collection goes to market. Additional accessories include keyrings and broach-style pins, gambler hats, a quilt and a pair of goggles.
This luxury link-up marks a new era for Stone Island, which was bought by Moncler in 2020 and is now led by CEO Robert Triefus who joined from Gucci in June 2023. Back in February, the brand transported the fashion pack to the north-most quarter of Milan to make its monumental Milan Fashion Week Men’s debut with a uniform ode to the underground for AW24. The innovative outerwear frontrunner already has a cult following and has been worn by everyone who’s anyone from Drake to Jason Statham (who also featured in its viral SS24 campaign). As it breaks through the high fashion barrier, perhaps this subcultural staple’s collaboration with Dior marks the start of its new normal. Did somebody say luxury gorpcore galore?
Dior x Stone Island will be available for purchase exclusively in Dior boutiques from June 14 in Milan, June 18 in London and Paris, America on June 27 and the rest of the world July 4. Discover the collection here.
Photography by Ethan Hart.
