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Amid a rising tide of adversary drones and missile attacks, laser weapons are finally poised to enter the battlefield.

THE AGE OF the laser weapon is finally upon us.

The United States Army has officially sent a pair of high-energy laser weapons overseas to defend American troops and US allies against enemy drones, the service recently revealed, marking the first publicly known deployment of a directed-energy system for air defense in military history. And, according to a top official, those weapons are actively blasting threats out of the sky.

The weapon, known as the Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL) and developed by the American defense contractor BlueHalo based on the company’s 20-kilowatt Locust Laser Weapon System, first arrived in an unspecified location overseas and “commenced operational employment” in November 2022, according to an April press release from the company. A second system arrived overseas “earlier this year.”

While the Army initially declined to indicate where the P-HEL systems were sent and whether they had achieved a “kill” against an adversary drone, citing operational security concerns, the service’s top acquisition official recently confirmed that the new laser weapons had in fact succeeded in neutralizing incoming threats in the Middle East.

“They've worked in some cases,” Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics, and technology, told Forbes this month. “In the right conditions, they're highly effective against certain threats.”

News of the P-HEL’s deployment comes as the US military seeks to aggressively bolster its air defense capabilities amid a dramatic increase in drone and missile attacks against US troops by Iran-backed militias in the Middle East, as well as against US Navy warships operating in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels in Yemen following the October 7 attack in Israel by Hamas.

Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the US Defense Department has been slowly but surely hinting at the use of laser weapons downrange. But the arrival of the P-HEL in the Middle East for operational use is a technological victory for the US military, which has actively pursued research related to directed-energy weapons since the 1970s. Even more significantly, it may also represent a tipping point for the development and use of laser weapons more broadly by militaries around the world.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Following its creation in 1960 by American engineer and physicist Theodore Maiman, the laser—technically an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”—almost immediately became a futuristic weapon of choice among both science fiction writers and military planners. This wasn’t surprising: While Maiman touted the potential scientific applications of his discovery when he first unveiled it to the country later that year, the laser immediately conjured up visions in the public consciousness of the Martian “heat ray” from H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, so much so that many of the contemporary headlines from its debut were variations of the Los Angeles Herald’s “L.A. Man Discovers Science Fiction Death Ray,” according to Jeff Hecht’s book Beam: The Race to Make the Laser. “In reality, the laser was more of a Life Ray than a Death Ray,” Maiman would later recall thinking of his invention’s medical applications, according to his memoir.

The Pentagon began exploring the military applications of lasers almost immediately, from relatively practical uses like designators for laser-guided bombs to more far-fetched concepts like the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, also known as “Star Wars.” But only in the past few decades has the underlying technology advanced to the point where laser weapons are effective against their intended targets.

In the mid-2000s, the Air Force successfully used its Boeing 747-based YAL-1 airborne laser to defeat ballistic missiles in flight during tests, while the Army’s Humvee-mounted Zeus-HMMWV Laser Ordnance Neutralization System system deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq to zap landmines, improvised explosive devices, and unexploded ordnance. By 2014, the Navy’s AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System (LaWS) was successfully disabling drones and small boats during testing from the bow of the Austin-class amphibious transport dock USS Ponce in what the service billed at the time as the world’s first “active laser weapon.” (When the Ponce was decommissioned in 2017, the LaWS’s successor system, the Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator, was installed on the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Portland, which successfully tested it in 2020 and 2021).

Apart from intermittent attempts at developing a non-lethal “laser rifle” over the decades, the Pentagon has generally envisioned employing modern directed-energy weapons primarily for defensive purposes. If successfully developed, high-energy lasers in particular could prove highly effective at short-range air defense missions against helicopters and low-flying attack aircraft, as well as blasting incoming rockets, artillery, and mortars out of the sky, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report on the US military’s directed-energy weapons programs. With enough power, a sustained laser beam could neutralize fast-moving hardened threats like cruise missiles and, eventually, even ballistic missiles.

After decades of technological progress, the US military is finally making the dream of laser weapons an operational reality: Not only has the Pentagon increasingly poured money into research and development, spending roughly $1 billion a year on at least 31 directed-energy programs since 2020, but the department has also finally deployed several mature laser weapons alongside US forces abroad in recent years for testing.

Those laser weapons include the Air Force’s High-Energy Laser Weapon System, a Raytheon-developed dune-buggy-mounted system developed for air base defense that saw testing overseas in 2021; the Marine Corps’ Compact Laser Weapon System, which Marines have been training on in the Middle East since 2021; Lockheed Martin’s 60-kilowatt High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS), which currently adorns the bow of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Preble; and the Army’s 50-kilowatt Stryker-mounted Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) system, or “Guardian,” which consists of a laser turret mounted on a Stryker infantry carrier, a platoon of which arrived in the Middle East in February for “real world testing.” The Army also recently took receipt of a 300-kilowatt “Valkyrie” laser system designed explicitly to deal with incoming cruise missiles.

The adoption of BlueHalo’s Locust laser weapon system in particular likely won’t stop with the P-HEL. In 2023, the company received contracts not just to develop the new 20-kilowatt Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) system that’s designed to integrate with the service’s next-generation Infantry Squad Vehicle light utility vehicle, but also a potential laser system for the Marine Corps’ Joint Light Tactical Vehicle that’s set to replace the service’s aging Humvee fleet.

The US military isn’t the only conventional fighting force pushing for a directed-energy element of its air defenses. The UK Royal Navy in April announced that it planned to fast-track the installation of its new 50-kilowatt “DragonFire” high-powered laser onto a warship by 2027 instead of 2032 as originally planned “as the need for weapons to counter drone and missile threats—like those fired by Houthi rebels—grows,” the service said in a statement. Less than a week later, US House Republicans unveiled their long-delayed security assistance package for Israel that included $1.2 billion for the development of the Israeli military’s “Iron Beam” laser air defense system “to counter short-range rocket threats” amid attacks from Hamas militants. Meanwhile, countries like Russia, China, France, India, and Turkey, among others, have all invested heavily in the development of laser systems in recent years, according to the Rand Corporation.

Famed hot-dog business could fetch between $3 billion and $5 billion

The Deal

Kraft Heinz KHC 0.69%increase; green up pointing triangle is looking to sell Oscar Mayer, the big maker of hot dogs, cold cuts and bacon.

The Details

Kraft Heinz recently tapped Bank of America and Centerview Partners to gauge interest in the business, which could fetch something in the neighborhood of $3 billion to $5 billion, people familiar with the matter said. It’s possible there won’t be any transaction.

It’s not clear who might be interested, but potential buyers for a business like this tend to range from private-equity firms to other food-industry players.

The Rationale

Under new CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera, Kraft Heinz is working to rejigger its portfolio as consumer interest in health and nutrition grows. It’s part of a bid to light a fire under a stock that’s done little in the past five years. The company currently has a market capitalization of about $44 billion.

Kraft Heinz is in the midst of a multiyear effort to improve the nutrition of supermarket staples like its ketchup and juice drinks, aiming to offer healthier options amid rising concern over ultra-processed foods, obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet.

The Context

The company this month reported quarterly results that disappointed investors as demand for some of its products cooled and it grapples with higher input prices. Kraft Heinz doesn’t routinely provide details of Oscar Mayer’s performance, but the company has been working to recover market share losses in cold cuts linked with supply-chain challenges.

Kraft Heinz, which makes grocery-store staples including Lunchables, Maxwell House, Jell-O and Velveeta, last August named Abrams-Rivera CEO after he did a short stint running the company’s North American operations. (He started his career at a Kraft Heinz predecessor before working at Mondelez International and Campbell Soup.)

Rivera has said he’s committed to making the company’s products healthier, in part by cutting sodium and sugar.

Oscar Mayer was once a cultural mainstay, thanks in part to its famous jingle: “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener…”

Two bidders for Romanian photovoltaic park withdraw a month after Brussels launched investigation

Two Chinese bidders have pulled out of a tender to supply a solar park in Romania, the latest sign that the EU’s new anti-subsidy powers are having a deterrent effect on companies Brussels claims receive financial support from Beijing.

The European commission on Monday said it closed an in-depth investigation launched last month after two consortiums bidding for the development of a 110 megawatt solar park in Romania withdrew their bids. The project, partly funded by the EU, was being scrutinised under the bloc’s foreign subsidies regulation.

Brussels in recent months has launched several such probes into alleged market-distorting subsidies received by Chinese companies — including raids at Nuctech, a Chinese security equipment supplier.

The two solar consortiums that dropped out of Romania are a German subsidiary of Longi Green Energy Technology, one of the world’s largest makers of photovoltaic cells and solar panels, and two European subsidiaries of the Chinese state-backed power company Shanghai Electric.

Longi confirmed that it had withdrawn from the process, adding that it was committed to its work in Europe to help the bloc with its climate goals. Shanghai Electric did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

This is the second time Chinese bidders in the EU have withdrawn from public tenders following the launch of an anti-subsidy probe, showing they would rathe drop out than share information with Brussels. CRRC Qingdao Sifang Locomotive, a subsidiary of CRRC, the world’s largest train manufacturer, also pulled out of a public auction in Bulgaria after the commission launched a similar probe in February.

Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal markets commissioner, said on Monday that the foreign subsidies regulation “is ensuring that foreign companies which participate in the European economy do so by abiding [by] our rules on fair competition and transparency”.

European solar manufacturers say that a glut of cheaper Chinese photovoltaics is undermining their production, with solar panels costing roughly half what they did at the same time last year due to the oversupply.

Major European solar manufacturers such as Meyer Burger have shut plants or cut their output. China supplies about 95 per cent of the panels used in the EU, according to the think-tank Bruegel.

The China Chamber of Commerce to the EU said on Monday that it remained concerned that the new rules were “a tool of economic coercion under the guise of economic security” that left Chinese companies no option but to withdraw from “troublesome, damaging, and uncertain legal procedures”. 

It decried “the selective transparency and potentially discriminatory application” of the EU’s new legal powers, adding that other non-EU entities taking part in the bidding process for the Romanian solar park did not receive the same level of scrutiny.

She says she will continue philanthropic efforts for women and girls

Melinda French Gates is resigning as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropies.

She said she is moving into “the next chapter” with her philanthropy and will have an additional $12.5 billion to commit to her work on behalf of women and girls.

Her last day of work with the foundation will be June 7

More lenders chasing the same deals could sow the seeds of tomorrow’s problems

Private credit has a supply problem.

When investment banks were pulling back from the market for risky loans, private credit was ready to step up and make bigger loans. That attracted a lot of attention, and a lot of new funding.

But now these banks are venturing back into the leveraged lending market, even as borrower demand for new loans has been tepid, threatening to throw the market out of balance. How private credit responds will be one of the truest tests yet of its riskiness.

Generally speaking, there are two types of lending supporting the market for riskier corporate borrowers, who may be smaller or particularly leveraged compared with prime borrowers. In private-credit deals, a single nonbank lender, or a small private group working together, directly arranges a loan with a borrower. In the broadly syndicated loan market, the loans are typically arranged by investment banks then parceled out to an array of investors.

Investors are now coming back to the syndicated market, drawn in by high yields and a solid economic backdrop. Through April, over $13 billion of direct lender loans have been refinanced by broadly syndicated transactions this year, according to PitchBook LCD. Last year, that trend was reversed, with about $20 billion of syndicated loans being taken out by direct loans over the full year.

This surge in lender money supply has meant improved pricing for borrowers. In the first quarter, average spreads, or what borrowers pay on top of a benchmark rate, on broadly syndicated new loans from issuers rated single-B were roughly 1.5 percentage points narrower than they were at the same time last year, according to LevFin Insights.

Better terms for borrowers in the broadly syndicated loan market, in turn, puts pressure on private-credit pricing. Lincoln International, an investment bank, works with managers to value private loans. It recently reported that spreads on larger private-credit deals in the first quarter were about 0.25 to 0.50 percentage point tighter than in the fourth quarter.

Lincoln also noted that lenders were refinancing some of their own borrowers, reducing spread levels in those deals by up to 0.5 to 1 point, often with extended maturities and additional protection against an early repayment of the loan.

“Proactive repricing is an indication they need to keep that money deployed,” said Ron Kahn, co-head of Lincoln’s Valuations & Opinions Group.

One concern is that lenders could respond to piles of dry powder and lower yields by taking on more risk.

“At some point it is possible that there might be too much money,” Kahn said. “But I don’t think that exists yet, and I think private credit has so far been very disciplined.”

Through last year, private credit’s loan performance has been in line with historical norms. For example, among a group of business-development companies publicly rated by Fitch Ratings, which are vehicles that make direct loans, non-accruing debt represented 2.2% of the debt’s cost in 2023, according to Fitch. That was up from 1.9% in 2022, but below the 2.3% mark in 2017.

Still, some observers remain on high alert. Moody’s Ratings in a recent report warned of “competitive escalations” between direct lenders and the broadly syndicated loan, or BSL, market. “We expect that credit quality will remain under pressure as convergence of the BSL and direct lending markets continues and lenders get more innovative with financings,” Moody’s wrote.

One development drawing attention has been an increasing use of what are known as payments-in-kind, or PIKs, in private-credit lending. This allows a borrower to pay a loan with things like additional debt rather than cash—which can be viewed as a worrisome sign of a cash shortage, or a crucial form of flexibility to avoid far worse outcomes. The percentage of certain large new direct-lending loans with PIKs was 9.4% over the past six months, up from 6.2% back in 2021, according to Lincoln.

The private-credit market is still evolving. The biggest firms have talked about a wider universe of lending that goes well beyond competing for the kinds of deals that could also be syndicated by banks.

Larger firms such as Apollo Global Management have invested in expanding their so-called origination platforms that can produce all sorts of different kinds of debt. The bulk of what Apollo does in private credit is intended to compete in the so-called investment grade market, which aims to generate lower yielding but less risky loans attractive to investors such as insurers.

“We can only grow our business as fast as we can originate,” Apollo Chief Executive Marc Rowan told analysts in early May. He said: “The taking of capital because you can take it and then investing it poorly is a quick way to destroy a business. I think we’ve seen lots of examples of that and beginnings of those seeds being set.”

Others focus on middle-market transactions that less often directly compete with the bank-syndicated market. “We’ve never been members of the bigger-is-better cult,” David Golub, CEO of Golub Capital BDC, which makes direct loans, told analysts earlier this month. He added that the “the specter of BSL execution gives large borrowers leverage over private credit providers, especially during periods when the BSL market is resurgent as it is now.”

Private credit has enjoyed a strong run in the past couple of years. But it is what lenders do now that might ultimately matter most.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reviewed several designs, but has not been satisfied with any.

Meta Platforms is exploring developing artificial intelligence–powered earphones with cameras, which the company hopes could be used to identify objects and translate foreign languages, according to three current employees. Meta’s work on a new AI device comes as several tech companies look to develop AI wearables, and after Meta added an AI assistant to its Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has seen several possible designs for the device but has not been satisfied with them, one of the employees said. It’s unclear if the final design will be in-ear earbuds or over-the-ear headphones. Internally, the project goes by the name Camerabuds.

The timeline is also unclear. Company leaders had expected a design to be approved in the first quarter, one of the people said. But employees have identified multiple potential problems with the project, including that long hair may cover the cameras on the earbuds. Also, putting a camera and batteries into tiny devices could make the earbuds bulky and risk making them uncomfortably hot. Attaching discreet cameras to a wearable device may also raise privacy concerns, as Google learned with Google Glass.

Meta declined to comment.

Several other tech companies are working on AI wearables, as they seek new uses for AI that will prove as transformative as the smartphone. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently told an associate that he and LoveFrom—Jony Ive’s design firm—have explored building an earbud-with-camera device, the associate said. Apple is also exploring adding cameras and AI to its earbuds, according to Bloomberg. And several startups have released small AI devices in recent months, including Humane’s AI Pin and Rabbit’s R1 pocket device, though both received poor reviews. Altman and a spokesperson for LoveFrom did not respond to requests for comment.

Meta leaders including Zuckerberg and Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth want to develop AI-powered earphones because they believe Meta’s competitors will pursue similar devices, one of the current employees said.

Bear Clark of Kansas-based electronics company Ear Micro, which develops “smart” earphones, licenses intellectual property and provides design support and engineering to tech firms, said interest from technology companies in developing “hearables” had exploded in the past eight to 10 months. Clark said he had recently been contacted by two big tech companies looking to develop smart earphones, though he declined to name them. Asked whether he was working with Meta, he declined to comment, citing a nondisclosure agreement. But he said Meta was, like many other tech companies, “very interested in the space.”

To make camera-equipped earbuds, the cameras could be placed on the rounded outer part of the earbud, with the goal of capturing an ultrawide angle, Clark said. Footage from the two earbuds “can then be stitched back together,” he said, creating a “complete 360-degree image.”

For companies like Meta, adding cameras to earbuds would allow users to map their surroundings. Using AI, the device could tell a user what they were looking at and how far they were from their office, for example.

And yet, as with the rush of activity around augmented reality and virtual reality devices, it’s not clear whether consumer demand for AI wearables will meet the industry hype.

Crowded Field

In 2019, Meta explored developing earphones that could be used for simple commands—asking for the time or whether a recent Facebook post had received any comments, for example—and for requesting reminders, two former employees said. However, Meta abandoned the project because leaders concluded it would be hard to stand out in the already established earphone market, the two former employees said.

In 2022, Meta filed a patent application for an in-ear earbud that bypasses the ear canal and transmits sound directly to the eardrum; the patent was granted in October 2023. The device, a prototype of which had been demonstrated internally in 2021, was designed so that audio would sound as if it was in the same space as the wearer—for example, a person speaking in the same room—another former employee said.

After OpenAI’s ChatGPT exploded in popularity, leaders at Meta started asking employees what AI-first devices they could develop, a former employee said. Since then, Meta has accelerated its work bringing generative AI to more products and has invested billions of dollars into those efforts, albeit without a clear path to recouping that investment.

Meta has also invested heavily in audio and acoustics technology, including acquiring Audio Analytic, which makes sound-recognition software, in 2022, and Whisper, developer of an AI-enabled hearing-aid system, in 2023.

But Meta has struggled in the past to develop successful hardware products. The company previously abandoned plans to build a line of smartwatches, the first of which was going to include two cameras and allow users to unclip the face of the watch to take pictures. Meta also scaled back its plans to develop AR glasses and canceled its line of Portal smart-home devices.

Portal struggled in part because it arrived years after Amazon and Google had begun selling smart-home devices that proved popular with consumers. Meta risks encountering a similar dynamic with earphones, since competitors such as Apple and Google already manufacture earphones. Meta also doesn’t make cellphones—a natural item to pair with glasses and earphones—which puts it at a further disadvantage in the hardware arena.

Designer Kim Jones is a longtime fan of the cult Italian sportswear label founded by Massimo Osti, which is undergoing a rebrand under new leadership.

PARIS — Stone Island is getting the couture treatment.

Dior has joined forces with the cult Italian sportswear label, worn by everyone from British action hero Jason Statham to rapper Drake, on a capsule collection that melds utilitarian staples with rich embellishments rooted in the French fashion house’s archives, the brands revealed to WWD exclusively.

Kim Jones, artistic director of men’s collections at Dior, is a longtime fan of the brand founded by Massimo Osti in 1982 — so much so that he is one of the faces of its upcoming campaign featuring members of its community.

“Stone Island is something that I’ve worn since I was a teenager. I could afford one piece. I remember saving up for it and it was so hard to get,” Jones said in an interview at the Dior showroom in Paris. “It was just a little sweatshirt, but with the patch, and I was probably about 19.”

The designer was referring to the buttoned badge bearing the brand’s signature compass logo that has been a beacon for subcultures ranging from the paninari teenagers of Milan in the ‘80s to British football fanatics in the ‘90s and more recently, U.S. hip-hop fans introduced to Stone Island through its collaboration with cult New York skatewear brand Supreme.

For Jones, Osti remains a key reference in menswear.

“His work is something you always look at, especially when you’re doing outerwear, because he’s one of the best in the world,” he said, lauding Stone Island for maintaining a strong brand identity. “It’s kept its DNA really strong and its technique really strong, and I just think there’s nothing like it. It means a lot to me personally.”

Jones saw parallels between founder Christian Dior and Osti in their quasi-obsessive quest for perfection. “The detail, the fabrication, the consistency: it was working with the silhouette, and refining and refining,” he said.

Owned by Moncler SpA since 2021, Stone Island is in the midst of a rebrand spearheaded by Robert Triefus, the former Gucci executive who took over as chief executive officer last year. Conversations with Dior were already underway when Triefus arrived.

“It fit very well with the vision that we have for Stone Island in this next chapter,” Triefus said. “Our intention is to reach broadly different communities and certainly the partnership with Dior will reinforce, perhaps for a more elevated customer, the values that the brand Stone Island brings to life.”

Osti, who died in 2005, was known for developing scores of new fabrics, treatments and dyeing processes, many of which found their way into the 74-piece collection, which includes ready-to-wear, shoes, leather goods and accessories.

“This is a brand and a label that was founded in a certain part of Italy that is not necessarily known for fashion per se, but for industrial design,” noted Triefus.

Stone Island is based in Ravarino in the region of Emilia-Romagna, home to the so-called “motor valley” that houses leading carmakers including Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ducati and Maserati.

Channeling Italy’s world-class manufacturing capacity, the brand has elaborated cutting-edge materials like heat-sensitive and reflective fabrics, in addition to a library of 60,000 colors.

Among its inventions is Raso Gommato, made by coating a military-origin cotton satin with a polyurethane film that makes the fabric wind resistant, and dyeing the garment with a mixture containing a special PFC-free, water-repellent finish.

The weatherproof textile was used on a number of looks, ranging from outerwear pieces like a marbled pale gray jacket with deep front pockets, to tailored options like a suit in oilskin yellow, one of the key colors in the collection.

Another example is its proprietary blend of Habutai silk and nylon. The slightly iridescent material was employed for washed black or pale green suits with Dior’s signature oblique-buttoned jacket, as well as detachable quilted waistcoats that fasten to jackets and coats using Stone Island’s so-called “dutch rope” system.

Both houses also brought their clothing archives to the table.

A field jacket from Stone Island’s spring 1988 collection, originally made of cotton and rubber, was reworked in cotton silk with a leather pocket embossed with the compass rose and Dior’s trademark cannage motif.

More surprisingly, sweaters, bomber jackets, field jackets and coats were embellished with tone-on-tone 3D floral embroideries inspired by Raf Simons’ spring 2013 haute couture collection for Dior, in a fanciful twist on the ghillie suits worn as camouflage by soldiers.

The pièce de résistance is a black raincoat embroidered with bows, rhinestones and gray bead pendants directly lifted from the Première Soirée ballgown from Dior’s fall 1955 haute couture collection.

At 80,000 euros, it’s the most expensive piece in the line, which starts at 300 euros for a keyring and runs around 5,200 euros for jackets.

“I just thought if we’re going to do it, and there is that collector of Stone Island and also of Dior that wants a special piece that they love, I think that’s a very important thing to have,” Jones said. “It’s molding the stories together in a very luxurious way.”

As a tribute to Stone Island’s color expertise, accessories include a circular leather trunk stamped with a compass rose that contains a painting kit produced with Maison Sennelier, the French store founded in 1887 that has supplied materials to leading artists including Picasso and Cézanne.

The partnership is bound to resonate with collectors, given that Dior has produced only a handful of co-branded collections, including a luggage line with Rimowa in 2019 and a capsule with Japanese label Sacai in 2021.

“Seeing those two brands together is a sign of the immense respect that each has for the other, and the legacy that each brings,” said Triefus, noting that the Rivetti family, which previously controlled Stone Island, was also highly selective in terms of brand collaborations, a strategy he plans to maintain.

These included several collections with Supreme between 2014 and 2023; a range of bags with Japanese accessory brand Porter from 2015 to 2020; a capsule with Nike Golf in 2019, and an ongoing tie-up with New Balance, with the next sneaker set to drop in June.

The capsule collection with Dior will land as Stone Island starts to deploy the next chapter of its campaign, which will include a female participant for the first time, and prepares to bring its e-commerce back in-house with a website to be unveiled in August.

“Certainly we believe strongly that this partnership will increase brand awareness for Stone Island and we can imagine that there are certain parts in the world that will benefit particularly,” Triefus said.

This includes Paris, where the brand plans to open a new store on Rue Saint-Honoré designed by Rem Koolhaas and his Rotterdam-based studio OMA before the end of the year.

The collection will be available exclusively in Dior boutiques, going on sale in Milan on June 14; Paris and London on June 18; the U.S. on June 27, and the rest of the world on July 4.