Stone Island Spring 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Stone Island Spring 2024 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Ferdinando Verderi with Photographer David Sims and models Jason Statham, Dave, Tricky, and Tyrone Estrella

Stone Island expands its cultural community with a new campaign for Spring 2024. The campaign sees the Italian technical outerwear brand tap leading fashion image makers, creative director Ferdinando Verderi and photographer David Sims, and an impressive cast.

This cast draws noteworthy creators into Stone Island’s global community, including the likes of actor Jason Statham and influential producer and rapper Tricky. Sims’ minimalist portraits of each star allow a strong sense of personality to shine through, finding them in moments of expression that feel revealing of introspective emotional realities – which further take on adventurous connotations through the styling that squarely centers the brand’s latest innovations in outerwear.

The campaign narrative is further enriched by questions specially set for each participant by curator and cultural critic Hans Ulrich Obrist. The answers appear alongside the portraits, fleshing out the distinct character of each individual by giving us a window into their personalities, creative practices, and quirks.

Impossible to ignore, however, is the absence of women from the campaign. While Stone Island has long been a staple of male-centric subcultures like Milanese Paninaro and London football hooliganism, there’s nothing inherently gendered about these outerwear pieces (or about clothes in general for that matter), and it’s a strange decision to try to appeal exclusively to a gendered idea of who these coats are for. The brand might have just alienated a large potential customer base.

That being said, the campaign undeniably does a good job in balancing community (even if it’s not an inclusive one) and individuality, emphasizing the distinctive character of each man while uniting them under the brand’s manifesto of innovation and adventure. It’s also great to see a strong use of text, which is something of a forgotten art in advertising and a powerful way to cut through the noise and express brand values in a genuine and thoughtful way.