I met a man on the stairs one day. He was exiting the pop-up just as I was entering, and stopped to tell me how much he enjoyed the website, as PS readers are always generous and well behaved.
Then he said something that surprised me: he thanked us for putting together Stone Island, which he had never thought of before. Like many others, he had thought it was streetwear and cheap and made like no other.
But he had visited, bought a raincoat, and was happy with it. “There’s a lot there, of course, and a lot of it isn’t mine,” he said. “But there are real gems – once you know what you’re looking for.”
I don’t think it will be difficult for me to quote him – PS students are generous all over the world, as it is said – and it stuck with me, because it was exactly the message I wanted to convey to that kind of person.
Beingdescribed the qualities of Stone Islanda few months ago, then Tonywrite more about the history of the companyI thought it would be good today to focus on one piece I recently purchased, and why it’s so special.
The piece is a cropped, dark red denim jacket, or more closely, the old M43 HBTs with their big chest pockets.
It’s made of linen, but the linen is combined with a lightweight jersey in the back to give it more structure. It means you get the firm fit of a denim jacket (and less wrinkling) but the coolness of linen.
I tried on a lot of things in the Stone Island store when I visited a month or so ago – mostly in the Ghost and Marina lines – and this jacket is the one that stood out, because it epitomizes the kind of textile innovation that Stone Island is good for.
There are pure linen and pure cotton versions of this type of coat. Blackhorse Lane doesdenim jacket type II large in linen;and over at Clutch Cafe, they have itFull Count jackets in new canvas colorsalongside the usual blue and black denim.
But linen will always melt, and cotton will never be cool. With the SI version you kind of get the best of both worlds – and no one in the world of vintage menswear is going to make that kind of stuff.
The coat is also double-dyed, a process they often use on cotton and linen that produces different dark colors; and the garment was washed, giving a good fade.
These dyeing processes aren’t what make the jacket better than regular linen, but they do make it different – another thing a reader might like more about Stone Island.
There are also a few other nice design details, like the hidden inner pocket on the left (shown below) which is subtle and easy to miss.
The jacket costs even Stone Island £1,180 – almost double what a PS student would normally spend on such an item.
Some of this depends on the technical aspects of the jacket mentioned above. Some of it depends on the fact that SI is a big brand with stores and advertising. And some of it goes to the many times of the collection, which is an interesting topic that hasn’t been covered much in the Everlasting Style.
Most of the time, we don’t like brands that change everything every six months. It means you can’t go back and buy the same thing in a different color after a year, or change something after five years.
But the flip side is the volume of new, interesting ideas. New designs, but also fabrics and cuts and colors. It’s not perfect for putting together the building blocks of a closet, but it’s fun and interesting.
When you start exploring designer brands like these, you begin to understand why someone might talk about following a particular designer’s work, and buy collections as they are released if something speaks to them in particular.
They identify with that creative idea, follow it on its journey, and mark the experience with fragments at certain points in time. To me it makes sense especially for someone like Stone Island, given so much has been built on innovation.
This is a very different way of shopping than what we usually discuss, but once you have your regular wardrobe filled, it can be fun and inspiring.
And of course it helps with the price if you buy from time to time.
Since I started covering Stone Island last year, I’ve picked up a new piece or two, as well as a classic piece from a friend – a cord popover from back in 1992.
I have begun to appreciate in wearing what I saw before only really far away, and reinforced what I wrote in that first article: quality, natural materials, the fact that each collection has something interesting (even if only one thing).
I can also navigate the brand better, knowing that the Marina collection for example – which is very traditional – is likely to have attractive pieces. Then I look at the Ghost collection, which is less common, urban. And I really only look at the mainline of technical stuff (like a rain jacket).
Stone Island has become a small number of designer brands that I regularly look to for timeless, beautiful pieces, alongside the likes of Hermes and Loro Piana. And the prices always seem reasonable after visiting that last one.
An anti-drop coach jacket, medium size, shown in classic US Army fatigues, a black Rubato branded t-shirt and EB Meyrowitz ‘Californian’ sunglasses.