Stone Island, the Italian fashion brand, has gifted a 35 mm film camera to a selection of VIP clients in China as part of its Year of the Horse '026 capsule collection for the Chinese New Year. The camera comes in silver, featuring a 28 mm f/8 focus-free lens and a built-in flash. It is supplied with a Kodacolor 200 negative film for 36 exposures.
The camera was not sold at retail but was distributed as a "VIC" gift in the Chinese market, presented in a traditional red box with a hinged lid, a drawer, a separate inner box, an instruction sheet, a spare film roll and red envelopes that reference the hongbao traditionally gifted during the Lunar New Year in China.
The choice of an analog camera demonstrates how film fashion has become mainstream on a global scale. The conceptual link to the authenticity of analog is now a very easy marketing tool. Instead of taking endless snapshots with a phone, there is a return to the experience of the film roll, to the waiting for photos to be developed, to the rituality of the limited and imperfect image. It is a language that today's fashion and luxury marketing knows perfectly.
On the web, the conceptual interpretation of this gift has gone beyond the limit of good taste: this small camera is above all a well-executed marketing stunt, tailored in the right way for a market – the Chinese one – where offering memorable and interesting gifts for the new year has real value in building business relationships.
If you scratch beneath the marketing surface, it quickly becomes clear that the exclusive Stone Island camera shares an extremely similar design, construction and specifications with many OEM analog cameras already on the market, including models very close to the Kodak F8. A quick visual search on Alibaba leads to a flurry of similar items, all with an average price of around 10 euros per item: they can be customized with logos, colors and other details. Many share the same design, the same shape and even nearly identical markings on the lenses.
There is a subtle and satisfying irony in the fact that an Italian brand can re-propose an exclusive gift to Chinese clients that likely derives from an already existing Chinese OEM manufacturing platform. Nothing could better embody the spirit of a new year under the banner of Chinese commercial and productive dominance.