You can tell a lot about a Stone Island garment based on that badge buttoned to its left sleeve.

Is there green thread lining the rectangle-shaped badge? Then that’ll be from before the turn of the millennium. All dyed a single hue? That’s a badge from Stone Island’s camouflage-themed Ghost line. Got a laurel wreath embroidered into the middle? Then you’re looking at a 30th-anniversary collector's item.

The badge acts as a secret language, a code understood only by those in the know. And with the launch of Stone Island’s Denim Research line, that language has expanded its vocabulary.

Denim Research is an all-new division of Stone Island gear, arriving with its own distinct badge.  

To match the indigo-dyed denim it’s attached to, each item from Stone Island Denim Research comes with a black and indigo badge.

All the embroidery that is normally yellow on Stone Island’s classic compass patch is rendered dark indigo blue, ultimately making for a more subtle piece of branding. 

Stone Island appropriately headed to Japan to initially launch this new diffusion line, the country that makes the best denim in the world.

There, in Stone Island's Tokyo Aoyama store, it debuted find boxy 13.5oz denim jackets with a four-thread twill weave for added strength and loose-fitting jeans in raw selvedge denim.

Look closely at the materials, and you’ll find some of Stone Island’s typical technical trickery. Here, the luxury sportswear label has utilized its “Polypropylene Denim,” previously used in a one-off line from 2016 to make denim more lightweight, hard-wearing, and water-resistant. 

Though it was understandably a Japan-first proposition, Stone Island's researched denim has now gone global, available from the brand's website.

Plus, it looped in the founder of London streetwear label Corteiz, Clint 419, and actor Alessandro Borghi to give this distinct new Stone Island line a proper introduction.

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