Kim Jones Leads Campaign For Collaboration Blending Haute Couture With Military Functionality
Dior and Stone Island have teamed up for a new capsule collection, with the campaign fronted by Kim Jones, the designer of Dior Men’s collection. In the campaign, Jones answers questions like “What Couldn’t You Live Without?” and “Do you Collect Anything?” The campaign was shot by David Sims with creative direction by Ferdinando Verderi, and interview questions by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Kim Jones described the collaboration, stating, “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.”
The collaboration emphasizes a shared passion for perfection and excellence in processes and clothing between Christian Dior and Massimo Osti, Stone Island’s founder.
Jones continued, “The romance, rigor, and meticulousness of both define 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.”
The collection features noble materials like silk, used both as a military mainstay and haute couture staple. Stone Island’s signature garment dyeing technique is utilized, with the Parisian atelier experimenting with garment-dyed embroidery. Examples from the haute couture archive, such as pieces from Autumn-Winter 1955 and Spring-Summer 2013, are applied to outerwear and knitwear, introducing a new technique for both brands.
The ‘alchemy of colour’ is central to the collection, with signature colours and silhouettes from the Stone Island archive transformed in intensity. An archive Stone Island field jacket from Spring-Summer 1988, originally in cotton and rubber, is now reimagined in cotton silk with embossed leather.
The collection also features a blend of Dior and Stone Island symbols. A ‘double pleat’ tailoring motif from Dior’s Spring-Summer 1952 haute couture collection appears alongside Stone Island’s ‘Dutch rope’ system. The Cannage and Compass Rose motifs are used throughout, from quilting to leather constructions, and the Dior written logo is paired with Stone Island’s iconic compass badge, now silk-based with the Cannage motif stitched through.
Shoes in the collection include hybrid designs that celebrate functionality and traditional shoemaking. Boots and a Derby influenced by climbing shoe construction feature thick soles developed through three moldings. A sneaker appears in Stone Island fabrication, stitched with the Dior Oblique design.
Bags in the collection highlight the fusion of high luxury and high functionality, offering advanced usability and technical specificity. A circular leather trunk, featuring Stone Island’s Compass Rose, reveals tubes of gouache, temperas, ink, and watercolors, produced with Maison Sennelier, a family-owned company that supplied artists like Picasso and Cézanne.
This collaboration, described as a generational project, combines traditional maroquinerie, new savoir-faire, and contemporary high functionality, defining Dior Men today.
