Stone Island is streetwear’s favorite adopted child. Though the outerwear-meets-luxury label originates from Ravinaro, Italy, it was quickly taken in by British fashionheads: Street-styled with trackies and trainers, Stoney, as they call it across the pond, couldn’t feel more British. Creative director Carlo Rivetti is acutely aware of the brand’s contemporary legacy, having collaborated with brands like Supreme, New Balance, and Nike. Rivetti’s latest mission for the brand, which has been under majority ownership of Moncler since 2020, has been to activate its devout fashion followers around the globe, paying the lads a bit of fan-service while expanding into new dimensions through art and performance.

Timed to the LA Art Week, Stone Island presented Selected Works ‘982-‘024, its first major archival exhibition in the United States. The massive installation in Culver City filled several rooms of an industrial-feeling warehouse, which was split into two sections called “Lab” and “Life.” Lab contained archive pieces selected by Rivetti. Rendered in a mix of woven metals, felts, and leathers, this collection highlighted the Stone Island team’s storied history with creative and playful approaches to impeccably made outerwear. One standout was a grid of 12 reflective jackets, all pulled from the brand’s first experimentation with high-visibility material in 1992. Another area of Lab displayed garment prototypes along with videos of how they were made. These one-of-a-kind jackets revealed the scientific expertise behind the luxury atelier, showing how process leads to product.

The second space, Life, featured both a full café and a curated gift store run in partnership with Los Angeles-based Community Goods and Better Gift Shop. Images of Stone Island’s new campaign shot by David Sims lined the walls of the lounge space. Campaign images were mounted on the walls, featuring an eclectic array of celebrities like actor Jason Statham and architect Heidulf Gerngross, overlaid with text from conversations between them and art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist. Each question surrounded themes of inspiration and hope, motifs at the core of the Stone Island universe.

The Selected Works ‘982-‘024 installation was part of a comprehensive effort to reposition Stone Island in the global sense, bringing its “community in tandem with production,” as stated in a press release. In the ’80s and ’90s, a Stoney jacket was synonymous with the lad archetype: a European male inspired by footballer aesthetics, camaraderie, and sportswear-like track pants and sneakers. The brand was a leader of contemporary street style hooliganism—all about copping and collecting rare pieces—in the early days of r/menswear. However in the 2020s, Stone Island seeks recognition instead for the longstanding technical aspects to its outerwear. CEO Robert Triefus, who came to the label last year after his time building Gucci Vault—a multidirectional archival project in the metaverse—highlighted that the existing Stone Island awareness in the US came from yet another unplanned source: Drake. The Canadian rapper wore Stone Island at the peak of his career around 2017, creating a social media frenzy that thrust core items like the Stoney puffer and black bucket hat into the general American consciousness—emphasizing, of course, the iconic navigation badge.

According to Triefus, Selected Works centered the technical (as seen in the Lab) to introduce the importance of duality: the high street and the high fashion. In other words, he and Rivetti do not plan to abandon Stone Island’s cultural roots. They believe revealing the construction behind the garment recharacterizes the brand’s identity as gear for the discerning wearer, rather than a sartorially regional personality. Giving a platform to a selection of “real” people alongside recognizable talent, Selected Works is equal parts construction and culture—a unified vision for everyone.