Stone Island Takes Its Next Step Towards World Domination

Stone Island's next step in global domination involves planting its flag in New York City.

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Complex Original

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Stone Island's next stop on its path to global domination? Planting its flag in New York City. The Italian brand was founded in 1982 in Italy and has nurtured its expertise in technical fabrics and mind-blowing dyeing processes over the past three decades. However, it's only been in the past half decade that the brand has really blown up stateside. Case in point: Stone Island now has 20 flagship stores worldwide and only two—in NYC and L.A.—are in the U.S.

With the help of celeb co-signs from Drake, A$AP Nast, and Travi$ Scott and collabs with Supreme, Stone Island has made a name for itself and the NYC location is proof.

The iron is especially hot for striking right now, and Stone Island CEO Carlo Rivetti knows it. "For about two years I have felt some signals from the market," he told Complex via e-mail. "I saw an increasing interest in the brand, particularly from young generations, so we wanted to tell Stone Island’s stories and the uniqueness of the product in a direct way to a subcontinent that still know little of us. In Europe as well as in Japan and South Korea, the brand is more and more established, so this is the right time to open the stores in Los Angeles and in New York." 

Stone Island took over a classic building in New York's SoHo neighborhood and made extensive changes to the architecture so that it was more in-line with the brand's aesthetic. Rivetti also said that the store will host installations so that consumers can better understand the magic behind Stone Island's products. "In the Hub area we present special and exclusive products and installations and we explain our research items," he said. "For example both stores hosted the 'Reflective Research' exhibition to show in a strong way the kind of product our investigation on fiber, textile, and treatment can achieve."

And while rappers like Drake helped make expansion into America possible, Rivetti is much more concerned with evolving the product that attracted the 6 God in the first place than anything else. "It is really great and an honor for us to get recognition from such extremely talented personalities," he said. "Of course it helped and helps, not only in the U.S. We would like to point out that this happened organically, Drake, for instance, has been a long time supporter. We are a product-driven company, maniacs about research applied to handsome utilitarian product, and to see that this is recognized is makes us extremely proud."

This obsession with making technically advanced and beautiful things carries over to the store, which you can now visit at 41 Greene St, New York, NY. The store's hours are Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m.to 7 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you're not in New York, you can take a peek inside the store via the images below. 

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