What can we learn from Stone Island’s success?

Infinite Colours – directed by Ken-Tonio Yamamoto – is described as a docu-poem, a portmanteau the director himself created. Watching it, this begins to make more sense. More holistic than a typical documentary, more conventional than an esoteric fashion film, it sits somewhere in the middle. Rather than tell a prosaic story from beginning to present, it’s concerned with communicating the spirit of Stone Island and the collective artisans who work in its Ravarino factory. “All my work has a similar approach,” Ken-Tonio says. “It’s very much about the feeling rather than information.” On stage introducing the film, he added: “Unlike other fashion documentaries, this one is not about the designer… the genius. It’s about the fact that it really ‘takes a village’ to do something so special like Stone Island does.”

The proverbial village is at the film’s core. “Our craftspeople are a force of nature, the fuel of our engine,” Carlo says. “They are full of energy and pride for what they do, and [this film] is a tribute to the people who make possible the creation of our products.” Getting to know the brand slowly in the years preceding the production of Infinite Colours, Ken-Tonio was continually struck by this intimacy. “Everybody comes from the same region. When they go on holiday, they stay in Italy. And if you compare that to what creative people do, seeking inspiration in bigger places and things, it speaks volumes of the mindset of the people working at Stone Island. At Ravarino, they don’t need much input from the outside; they seem well aware of the universe they have inside.” The philosophy is quite simple: “Everything that makes you so unique and weird is the most important aspect, and if you take that and work around it with your community, you will end up having something that is undeniably you.”

Because of this unique quality, he didn’t want Infinite Colours to resemble a traditional fashion doc, “which meant steering away from the romantic vision of Italian craftsmanship,” he says. “There’s not an atelier here with the fashion seamstress working with the designer. What they do here is so much more chemical, there’s a lot of laboratory work. They are extremely unpretentious, and so I wanted the film to be unpretentious too, without sacrificing the poetic essence of it.” Instead, he hopes that, with this documentary, viewers will gain a better understanding of the “idiosyncratic” nature of Stone Island. “What’s so interesting is that they are so ‘provincial’. And if you’re not Italian, it’s extremely fascinating to notice how a global brand that is so competitive can be so rooted to the province.”

For Eden Tan, a young London-based menswear designer with a zero-waste approach to creation, this holistic approach was what struck him most whilst watching the film. “Everyone in the team, from design to manufacture, had such an infectious passion for Stone Island.” It’s something that has inspired their own approach to design. “The way they have vertically integrated their manufacturing to take responsibility for their impact on people and the planet has always been aspirational to me.” 

Ashley Morris, another London menswear designer specialising in creative pattern cutting, fabric development and natural dyeing techniques, was taken by the “humble perspective of what we should be appreciating in the process of garment creation” in the film. In his own work, Ashley takes cues from the brand’s culture of slow, thoughtful design. “The process of slowness is something I really appreciate and have been trying to practice as of late,” he says. “I believe in this current world, it is too easy to fall into the trap of creating too quickly and producing for the sake of ‘seasons’. Stone Island shows that taking time to play and focus on craft not only allows for evolution and innovation as a brand, but for happy mistakes to happen. These mistakes can be more innovative than the original idea.”

So, what else can we learn from Stone Island from watching Infinite Colours? Here’s what Carlo Rivetti told us.

Start with a new idea

“Keep pushing forward the boundaries of innovation. Stone Island was born with a garment made of truck tarpaulin. It was clear from the onset that we were onto something different, something that ‘deviated’.”

Don’t rebrand, just refine your product

“I think it’s essential to believe in the project and to protect it at all costs from what’s happening around it. We know for a fact that it goes in waves, so if you follow them, you’re already late. It’s a straight line upwards: sometimes there are moments it crosses the line of fashion in one of its crests, when they meet on a trend, sometimes it simply doesn’t.”

Build long and lasting relationships with everyone you work with

“20 years ago, I saw sewing robots in Japan for the first time. They were incredible to look at, but they could only do straight stitching. For all other types of stitchings, we still need that sophisticated technology called the hand. Quality is given by both good machinery as well as the people who use them. So when I find a factory with high-quality hands, if they are lacking the technological tools, I’ll provide them with them. I do it because I know that I’m entrusting my technology with people who will be able to make the best out of it. I don’t like to call them subcontractors. It’s a personal relationship. We have the same relationship with our [stockists]. Some of them have been buying the brand for the past 40 years, through thick and thin, just like a marriage. I’m a hopeless romantic, but I truly believe that this is the only way to proceed: from the creation of the product, crafted by these trusted people, to the sale, we all feel we are part of something special.”

Research, research, research

“I think that innovation, research and technology have been the key to our success. Without that, we’d have been just like all other brands. There was a moment when English-style diamond patterned jumpers were in, and our sales people were begging me to make one. But I told them there was no need to make any since there were already plenty of options in the market, which were probably even better than the ones we would have made ourselves.”

Create a working environment everyone can enjoy

“We called Stone Island’s second book Famiglia, because one of the biggest strengths of this brand is the sense of family that everyone feels. I always say that every night before clocking out, our people turn off the lights in the office in Ravarino. Just like they’d do at home. They love their job.”

Technical skill is king

“People change with age and with experience. Young designers can be very individualistic sometimes. I’ve always told my students to go deep into things. They can’t afford to be superficial in this job. They don’t understand that design is not everything in a product. You can sketch an incredible garment, but if you don’t have the technical tools and the people to craft it, it will always be an abstract idea. Of course, I told them to aim high, so that if they encountered any technical limits along the process, they could still craft something decent.”

Never forget your core audience

“In 2012, at the presentation of our first book, there were two generations of fans: my ‘old people’ wearing old Stone Island, and then the first wave of youths. They had never seen those archival pieces in real life, and I still remember the look on their faces while the elders were telling them the story of those garments… that’s when I realised we were on the verge of something big.”

If your business grows, build an archive

“At Stone Island, we have three types of archives: the product archive, the archive of all the dyeing formulas and the one of all the textiles. But let’s focus on the first type. At the beginning, it didn’t exist. At the end of each season, we would simply store the collections. But after 15 years or so, we realised that the storage had taken the shape of an archive. So we labelled all the garments, and we created a digital database. Then the earthquake came, and so we built a new space that is a full-fledged archive with lighting and air control. It serves a heritage and storytelling function, but it’s also a tool for us to create new collections informed by our previous work. It’s a motivational drive for our design team, too, because they design with the idea of ‘fuelling the archive’ with new pieces. And the same approach is adopted by our clients: yesterday night [at the Stone Island: La Storia Update launch at the London flagship store], they were all coming to show me the photos of their personal collections.”

 

Watch the full film here: