How Stone Island Perfected Sports Marketing
Few brands come close to Stoney's network of loyal athlete fans and storied sporting heritage.
Welcome back to SportsVerse, my twice-weekly newsletter that tells stories you can't find anywhere else about the intersection of sports, fashion, business, and culture. Powered by OffBall.
(First things first, there will likely be no newsletter this Thursday as I’ll be on vacation! I’ll catch all of you next week.)
On Saturday night, when Oleksandr Usyk stepped out for his ring walk in front of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium, flanked by the usual cluster of security guards and TV cameras, one detail stood out above all: the Stone Island badge on his arm.
Usyk, who defeated Daniel Dubois to become the three-time Undisputed Champion of the World, wore a bespoke parka jacket designed specifically for the occasion by Stone Island, the cult Italian fashion label which has had a storied, complex (and at times controversial) relationship with the world of sport, going back decades.
Stone Island, owned by Moncler since 2020, is probably the single most culturally significant brand in European sports. Few other brands have had an equally lasting influence on such disparate pockets of society, from '90s European football hooligans to British politicians to regular kids on the street to American rappers to the Milan Fashion Week crowd.
As the company’s chairman told The Guardian last year, “Stone Island is a religion.” The brand is many things to many different types of people.
While today’s newsletter won’t dive into the entire history of the brand’s relationship with sport (that’s a story for a newsletter or coffee table book another time), I wanted to use the Usyk ring walk moment to unpack how Stone Island uses its association with sports adjacent organisations and individuals to continually keep its brand desirable in the eyes of many disparate and seemingly disconnected consumer groups, all united by their love for “getting the badge in”.
A Smart Collaborator Brand
Collaborations in fashion don’t always need to be big splashy projects which yield collections that people may or may not buy.
The best collaboration strategies are those which allow a brand to create a network of influential tastemakers which sit in its orbit — not as stuffy as the traditional brand ambassador model, but more of a friends with benefits situation. It’s a valuable marketing play that can build an aspirational energy around a brand.
Stoney, as it’s affectionately known, has built quite a formidable roster of friends of the brand, who aren’t necessarily signed ambassadors and whose relationship began organically through their natural affinity to its iconic badge. Usyk, for example, is a long-time Stone Island wearer. The brand seized what was an incredible marketing opportunity — the ring walk at Wembley ahead of his title fight on the weekend — to bring him further into its world by creating a bespoke outfit for him and an accompanying billboard campaign which showed up outside the stadium.
The brand has replicated this model for several sports adjacent tastemakers and athletes over in recent years, as well as brokering smart product collaborations with the likes of New Balance, which have helped take the brand’s logo from the bleachers onto the actual field of play.
The most noticeable channel in which Stone Island flexes the breadth of its sports culture know-how is its coveted collection lookbooks and campaigns. Its recent Spring/Summer collection — “Community as a Form of Research” — featured cult hero Japanese footballer, an OG football-fashion icon, and Spike Lee, whose avid fandom of both basketball and soccer needs no introduction.
Earlier this year, when Stone Island launched its “Raw Beauty” collection, it cast NBA legend Carmelo Anthony alongside Clint, the founder of UK streetwear sensation Corteiz (and a designer truly obsessed with vintage football culture), in the campaign.
In a market inundated with brands desperately trying to get any athlete in their shows or campaigns, Stone Island has been able to cut through the marketing noise thanks to its taste level and connectivity across the world of sport. These are not easy athletes or celebrities to source who would agree to just any brand involvement.
For Stone Island, the flex is that the draw of the badge and association with the brand is so significant that there are very few tastemakers who wouldn’t pick up the phone when they come calling. It’s also Stone Island’s deep knowledge of sport and niche sports culture fandom — identifying and associating with figures like Nakata — which pleases fans, who increasingly strive for authenticity in a market full of anything but.
Those names are just the tip of the iceberg. Steph Curry has his own Stone Island campaign moment earlier this year. Parkour athlete Davide Garzetti fronted the brand’s Autumn_Winter '024-'025 collection. Meanwhile, NFL star and New York Jets wide receiver Garrett Wilson starred in a campaign for the brand earlier this year, a full-circle moment after he was first introduced to its clothing while in high school, per Complex. His quote in the article sums up exactly the aspirational pull the brand has not just among sports fans, but young athletes too.
“I’d see athletes and artists wearing it, and it had this distinct energy that made it stand out,” he told Complex . “At the time, I couldn’t afford it, but once I got to college, I was finally able to buy a few pieces for myself. Fast forward ten years, and now I’m starring in a campaign for the brand. It’s a full-circle moment that still feels surreal.”
None of this is new for Stone Island. It has never been afraid to go against the grain, select up-and-coming tastemakers or work with people from the world of sport who rub people up the wrong way. In 2009, for example, it cast renegade Italian footballer Mario Balotelli, then a wonderkid at Inter Milan, in one of its famous brand campaigns.
Stone Island is a brand whose clothing — and the people who wore it — for many years operated on a fine line between being shunned and revered in equal measure. Its marketing strategy still echoes the rebellious, anti-establishment nature of its heyday.
Beyond its formal collaborators, Stone Island has long been adored organically by athletes over the years. This too, has helped boost the brand’s cult status exponentially. After all, it was former Manchester United legend Eric Cantona — another crazy character best known for fly-kicking a fan in the crowd — whose frequent wearing of Stone Island gear in post match interviews and travel days helped boost the brands popularity and sales across the UK and Europe in the 1990s.
The brand has also long been worn by Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola (though he eventually took to removing the logo from the sleeve for various reasons), and it has also been a go-to for his PSG counterpart, Luis Enrique for many years. It’s also a favourite of Manchester City striker Erling Haaland who is always seen in paparazzi photos wearing the badge around the city and on vacation. The list goes on and on.
More recently, Stone Island has worked with New Balance on a series of collaborations which has helped take its famous badge from the streets onto the pitch. It’s a partnership between two brands who truly understand how to operate at the intersection of sports culture and style. The latest Stone Island x New Balance Furon V8 football boot was revealed by New Balance athlete Bukayo Saka while playing for England in June — yet another facet of Stoney’s omnipresent influence in sports.
Stone Island has a unique foothold in the world of sport thanks to its cult status and chequered history dating back decades — not every brand has this luxury. But even still, the brand proves that an effecting sports marketing strategies goes far beyond simply paying a roster of ambassadors to parrot a brand’s messaging and show up at events. It’s about displaying a certain level of taste and awareness of compelling stories and individuals from across the world of sport.
It’s about being selective, yet omnipresent.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for being here.
See you next time,
DYM