The Dior and Stone Island Capsule Collection

Dior presents the Dior and Stone Island Capsule Collection

“There is a meeting of monsieur Dior and 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. Here, in the coming together of Contrasting traditions, there’s a new kind of clothing alchemy.” Kim Jones

A shared passion for perfection and excellence in processes and clothing shapes the legacy of Christian Dior and that of Massimo Osti, the founder of Stone Island.

In the collection, the romance, rigor and history of the Parisian Haute Couture atelier meets that of the northern Italian mastery of machine processes and meticulous functional detailing. In the coming together of clothing, a parallel is drawn between the two in terms of savoir-faire; it is the romance, rigor and meticulousness of both that defines masculine clothing today at Dior: this is the know-how of now.

Conventions collide and hybridize, both in terms of technique and materiality alongside attitude and mood. From the functional and military-inspired Stone Island to the haute couture roots and high tailoring traditions of Dior. Neither is just a ‘look’ of functionality or utility or the handcrafted, rather the tried and tested approaches of both houses are respected, adhered to and advanced in a new way.

Common ground is found through the use of noble materials, particularly the utilisation of silk both as a military mainstay and as an haute couture staple. Stone Island’s signature garment dyeing technique is found throughout the collection and finds new form through the parisian atelier’s experiments with garment-dyed embroidery – examples are taken from the haute couture archive, from autumn-winter 1955 and spring-summer 2013 respectively – and applied to both outerwear and knitwear. Utilizing an extremely complex handmade process, it is a completely new technique for both Dior and Stone Island.

The ‘Alchemy of Colour’ is a central theme in the collection. The move to using almost exclusively noble materials transforms the outcome of the garment dyeing process. Signature colours and silhouettes from the Stone Island archive are utilized and transformed in intensity. For instance, an archive Stone Island field jacket in raso gommato from spring-summer 1988, originally realized in cotton and rubber is now transposed, utilizing cotton silk with embossed leather.

A series of signs and symbols unite the houses in the collection from the discreet to the more direct. A ‘double pleat’ tailoring motif traverses the clothing, originating from Dior’s spring-summer 1952 haute couture collection. At the same time, internal structures are often defined by Stone Island’s characteristic ‘dutch rope’ system for attaching and detaching. The cannage and the Compass rose are talismanically utilized throughout, from quilting to leather constructions. While the Dior written logo sits alongside Stone Island’s iconic insignia, the buttoned-down compass badge, now silk-based with the cannage motif stitched through.

Shoes are hybridized; an amalgam of crossed archetypes that both celebrate functionality and utilitarian forms together with traditional, formal shoemaking. Boots and a derby – a classic element of Dior iconography – are influenced by the construction of a climbing shoe and enhanced with a thick sole developed through three moldings. A sneaker appears in Stone Island fabrication from the collection, in cotton sateen, stitched with the Dior Oblique design. While the bags present perhaps the clearest view of what comprises savoir-faire today for men. Here, high luxury meets high functionality with relevance beyond materiality and finish to advanced ease of usability and technical specificity.

A circular leather trunk magnified with Stone Island’s compass rose – that reveals tubes of gouache, temperas, ink and watercolors – produced with the family owned maison sennelier, which supplied and accompanied some of the greatest artists, including Picasso, Cézanne and Delaunay, in the creation of their masterpieces. It is a generational project, featuring many hours of work and encompasses the idea of traditional maroquinerie, new savoir-faire and contemporary high functionality, all that defines Dior Men today.

© Video & Editorial Shooting: @EthanJHart_
DOP @benmarshall.dop
Post production: @wildislandfilms
Edit: @_liamoz
Colour: @francisqureshi
Style: @elliegracecumming 
Music: @AnaStudioParis.Music

Credits: © Courtesy of Christian Dior Couture