Stone Island's Techy Sub-Label Puts the Cape Front & Center
Stone Island’s Prototype Research_Series, the brand’s ever-evolving project where it flaunts its outerwear expertise through fabrication and finish, returns for an eighth time at this year’s Milan Design Week, which kicked off on April 15.
The program, which sees Stone Island hone in on a different limited-edition garment, fabric or treatment each season, borrows industrial techniques from the automotive, boating and sports sectors for Series_08.
The result? A fabric created in collaboration with three industrial partners that features a multifaceted linen textile base as a natural reinforcement material, subsequent needle-cohesion to a non-woven fabric veil, state-of-the-art inkjet printing with pigments, and double lamination of aliphatic polyurethane film.
The finished product is a cape style piece inspired by the very first Stone Island collection from back in 1982, a functional reference to a military garment that could evolve into a tent.
Inside the exhibition, which is open from April 15 to 21, is a dramatic wall display of thirty-two interconnected Stone Island capes that serves as a visual testament to the material’s versatility and the collection’s artistic vision.
A selection of T-shirts and tote bags celebrating Prototype Series 08 will be available at the exhibition and then in the selected Stone Island stores in late May.
Stone Island’s Prototype Research_Series is now in its eighth season and has become a staple in the brand’s yearly seasonal output, alongside its other endeavours including Ghost and Marina.
During last year's Milan Design Week, Stone Island presented Liquid Crystal Heat Reactive: a super techy nylon canvas fabric coated with a reactive helical-shaped cholesteric liquid crystals ink.
Stone Island is, and always has been, ahead of the curve when it comes to technical fabrics, and its ongoing Prototype Research_Series is just the brand flexing that. Can you blame them?
