Nick Waplington photographs architect Joseph Grima for Stone Island’s ‘research project’

Lightness, experimentation, reduction: such are the principles behind Stone Island’s ’Ghost’ line, seeing details stripped back and every element on the garment – including the brand’s signature compass badge – rendered in pure monochrome. 

It makes Oscar Niemeyer’s 1970s-built Palazzo Mondadori in Milan, a vast modernist office where monumental concrete arches emerge from the surface of an artificial lake, an apt backdrop for a new series of images of the collection captured by seminal British artist and photographer Nick Waplington (the campaign is revealed by Wallpaper* for the first time today).

Joseph Grima photographed by Nick Waplington for Stone Island

Described as a ’response’ to Stone Island Ghost’s latest collection, the series stars the architect Joseph Grima in what the brand describes as a continuing ’research’ project into members of the Stone Island community (another recent campaign, released the same day as the brand’s first runway show in January 2024, captured the Stone Island ’famiglia’ from actor Jason Statham to musician Dave).

Grima, who is co-founder of the architecture and research studio Space Caviar and creative director of Design Academy Eindhoven, said he came to be involved in the project through Stone Island’s creative director Ferdinando Verderi, ’an old friend’. ’I didn’t know Nick previously but I’ve always loved his photography. It all sounded crazy and fun so I jumped on board,’ Grima tells Wallpaper*.

The choice of Palazzo Mondadori was his own, ’mainly for the opportunity to explore it properly, which I’d been meaning to do for years’, he says of the building, which he describes as ‘insanely amazing’. ’I basically spent the day on what felt like a sci-fi film set, acting out the part of some lost and confused interplanetary design critic who had travelled a few light years to experience the seductive architectural wonders of a nearby galaxy,’ he says.

’At the outset, I didn’t really know anything about what I’d be wearing, but in retrospect, Stone Island’s Ghost collection felt like it was designed to be worn in such an extreme environment – Nick’s main job was to keep my feet on the ground and stop me getting carried away by my fantasies of interstellar cinematic glory.’

This season, the Stone Island Ghost collection largely centres on research into two fabrics, cotton-derived Cupro Raso, which has the hand-feel of silk, and the contrasting organic cotton O-VENTILE, a fabric used by the military for its breathable and waterproof properties. Here, it makes up versions of archetypal trench coats and field jackets.

‘I enjoyed the playfulness of the pieces – it was very liberating to be stepping into such futuristic clothing,’ Grima continues. ‘My favourite was the white outfit, perhaps because we shot that one on the top-floor terrace. [It was] brilliant, unforgettable stuff.’

The S/S 2024 Stone Island Ghost collection is available from stoneisland.com.

stoneisland.com