Dior x Stone Island: “BY OBSESSIVES, FOR OBSESSIVES”
Obsession: It’s what fuels most of the fashion industry. From insatiable consumers to compulsive creatives, it’s near-manic fixations that keep the whole show somehow ticking along, season after season. And when obsessives get together, well, things start to happen.
Let’s talk about the Dior and Stone Island capsule collection. While the Parisian fashion house and Italian streetwear label may seem an unlikely pair, they’re bound by — yes — obsessives. That’s according to Dior Men’s creative director, Kim Jones. (And as one himself, he should know.) To explain the collab’s full significance, Jones looks to the beginnings of both brands.
Christian Dior and Massimo Osti, founders of Dior and Stone Island respectively, are people “from opposite ends of the fashion spectrum,” says Jones. One’s “haute couture vision” is far from the other’s “military functionality” — “yet I think they’d recognize something in each other and in what they achieved through clothing.”
When Dior started his namesake brand in 1946, his cinched waists and lavish skirting revolutionized womenswear. “The New Look,” as it was called at the time, has become a fashion mythology as ubiquitous as the Frenchman’s name itself; earlier this year, it was even immortalized on AppleTV+ in a drama series of the same name.
By the time Dior died in 1957, his brand had become so big that authorities simply couldn’t let it fail. That’s just as well: From under Dior came designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Cardin; fast-forward to today and remnants of the original Dior look can be seen in the styles of designers from Thom Browne to Miuccia Prada. Its influence is felt everywhere.
Osti’s story is similar: Stone Island was a hit from the get-go in 1982, quickly becoming the essence of high-end casualwear. It was subtle, everyday, and unflashy — but to fans of the brand, it represented quality construction, avant-garde techniques, and, above all, knowledge. The brand’s experimentation with fabrics and dyeing processes kept it consistently ahead of the menswear curve. It’s remained an innovator to this day. Silvio Rivetti, Stone Island’s creative director, testifies to Osti’s legacy. “Massimo gave life to a sportswear that was urban and elegant,” he says, “not an active sportswear nor a formal wear.”
If you follow fashion even a little bit, you’ll be familiar. That famous embroidered compass was once a niche badge of designer subculture. Now, it’s a worldwide symbol of clout. Co-opted from Northern Italy, British football hooligans took a shine to the brand’s minimal, covert expression of masculinity and its ability to slip under the noses of police. From there, it wasn’t long before it was adopted by UK rap scenes, US hip-hop culture, and just about everyone else (welcome to the chat, Dua Lipa).
If you can position yourself at any point on the Stoney-Dior continuum, this collab collection might just be for you. Plus, with Paris Saint-Germain stars Kylian Mbappé and Bradley Barcola having repped the clothes pre-release, you wouldn’t be alone. The Dior x Stone Island capsule is academic in its attention to the archives of both brands, stellar in its creativity, and unwavering in its practicality.
Obsession-worthy, in short.
Transformation is key to the collection. Historic garments are brought back in a different font: A Stone Island jacket from Fall/Winter 1988-89, originally made from cotton and rubber, is reimagined using cotton silk and embossed leather. Double pleating runs throughout, inspired by Dior’s Spring/Summer 1952 haute couture collection. Stoney’s signature Dutch rope is another common thread. In this collection, Rivetti says, “you can see a strong reference to the shapes of our first pieces. We are evoking the early ’80s.” The original Stoney values are still there — the functional attitude, the workwear inspiration — but with a decorative, Dior flourish. Here, a functional, bomber-style jacket is decorated with the droplet finish; there, a pair of sneakers is stitched with the Dior Oblique design.
But some things are entirely new. The technique used for garment dyeing embroidery, Jones tells us, is “unheard of”; and with its attention to color, the collection remains faithful to the innovations of both brands. Block colors are in abundance: There’s a staple black leather jacket, a bright yellow raincoat, and a pink military vest — all treated to lashings of the Dior x Stone Island collab logo.
The brand calls this “alchemical”; we call it forensic. “There’s so much work put into each piece,” Jones says. “It looks very simple, but I love when you go in the store and it’s just the gradient of color. I just wanted it to be, like, color-blocked.”
It’s hard to imagine the years of history, of obsession, that lie behind each garment. But Jones revels in those contradictions. “I love Stone Island,” he says. “As a brand, it makes a total commitment to its craft and to rigor — in that way, it’s not dissimilar to Dior. It also occupies a place in pop iconography. I love those extremes. This collection is both: It’s garment-dyed color-blocking and Chris Lowe.” The obsessives at Dior and Stone Island can marry extremes and make it look easy. It might recall the Pet Shop Boys, but it’s far from “Being Boring.”
