Stone Island’s CEO Wants Stoney Fans to Keep Him Honest (EXCLUSIVE)
Only a handful of the three-dozen people photographed in the first three chapters of Stone Island’s Community as a Form of Research project are looking down the camera.
Film director Spike Lee was distracted by something to his right, British rap pioneer Tricky was midway through pointing at something out of frame, and Japanese footballer Hidetoshi Nakata was snapped mid-conversation with someone unseen.
“It’s fairly unusual to put images out that capture people almost when they're not looking,” says Robert Triefus, Stone Island’s CEO. “Everyone is concerned about touching photos up, redoing it — it has to look exactly right. But what’s so great about this is that it's almost stolen moments. [Capturing] someone in their truest and most honest form is very unusual in today's highly superficial world, I think.”
Triefus, like the label that he's overseen for two years, craves honesty.
Hired as Stone Island CEO in May 2023 after almost 15 years at Gucci, Triefus immediately began plotting a community-focused project true to Stone Island’s DNA. "When I arrived, I realized that it would be extremely inappropriate to deviate from the codes of Stone Island," he says.
He landed on a cast of 12 notable Stone Island admirerers per season, photographed against a white background by David Sims and asked a selection of questions from the 100 written by curator Hans Ulrich of London's Serpentine Galleries. That is, in a nutshell, Community as a Form of Research.
Unveiled here exclusively by Highsnobiety, the project's iteration kicks off for the Fall/Winter 2025 season with Italian actor Alessandro Borghi, champion boxer Oleksandr Usyk, North London musician Chy Cartier, and Chokkan, a DIY-er, artist, and designer.
That’s four people with vastly different occupations, all of varying levels of fame, and all from different countries, brought together by one brand. And that’s the beauty of Community as a Form of Research.
“The diversity is great. Showing old people, young people, people with various backgrounds and interests in life,” says Jesse Oeinck, owner of the vintage store Vilis, which regularly stocks archival Stone Island.
“While Stone Island was founded on fabric innovation and utility, it’s the subcultures that adopted it, from football terraces to Britpop to grime, that cemented its cult status." concurs Rhys McKee, owner of fashion platform Cake Not Crumbs.
Triefus is acutely aware of the cult that surrounds the Italian fashion brand. In fact, he spent his formative years surrounded by it.
A native Londoner, he moved to Manchester, a Stone Island stronghold, in 1979. It was there, attending the opening night of rave epicenter Haçienda, that Triefus first saw Stone Island-obsessed football fans.
“I consider myself fortunate to have had life experiences with subcultures that are relevant to what Stone Island represents,” says Triefus. “I've been able to live it. Hopefully, I can act a bit as a custodian of what the brand represents.”
Today, Stoney is simultaneously associated with London rappers like Giggs or Dave and British music legends like Liam Gallagher, who've thus been brought in for Community as a Form of Research.
Look beyond the UK’s famously Stone Island-obsessed shores, and you find dedicated wearers like critically acclaimed film director Spike Lee or Japanese vintage stores like ‘bout and Geek Out, the latter owned by Chokkan, who features in the newest Stone Island campaign.
Demonstrative of its reach, Stone Island's influence is even expanding beyond its core clientele. Despite being a menswear brand, for instance — bar a one-off experimental line in 2001 — Stone Island’s customer base is 20% women.
Having many small pockets of Stone Island fans is both a blessing and a curse. It provides the imprint with many stories to tell, and an even higher number of people to displease.
“Stone Island is a cult brand. It’s tribal, and with that comes a lot of bravado and an element of gatekeeping,” says McKee.
That’s the thing with a brand with such deep subcultural ties, its followers are ready to protect what they believe is the brand’s essence. “I know that we will get called out if we put a foot wrong, and I take that kind of responsibility incredibly seriously,” says Triefus. “Stone Island is part of the zeitgeist, in a way. And that is highly unusual.”
So far, there have been no such fan-led protests to speak of. Triefus and his team have been playing a clever balancing act, keeping to the plain photography style of vintage Stone Island campaigns while involving cult favorite longtime fans of the brand and adding a few unexpected, sometimes unknown faces along the way.
The fourth chapter of the Community as a Form of Research is no different.
Yet-to-be-unveiled FW25 cast members include Earl Sweatshirt, Clint, and Nasser Ssekandi: an American rapper and longtime Stone Island wearer, London streetwear’s current poster child, and an unknown longtime Stone Island employee working as its London client advisor manager.
That's Community as a Form of Research. That's Stone Island.
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