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Golden Goose’s Haus in Venice stands in the middle of what may be one of the most dystopian landscapes I’ve ever seen in my life — the modern industrial red-brick building trying its best to complement the surrounding shipyard, neglected shrubbery and rail freight passing right in front of its gate, in the pouring rain.
Once that gate opens, however, the contrast to the building’s surroundings yawns — a screen playing one of resident artist Marco Brambilla’s mesmerising video installations in a loop stands in the middle of a minimalist zen courtyard that comes complete with a pond. The courtyard itself is surrounded by the building that, once upon a time, 25 years ago, housed the brand’s first headquarters. Today, it houses Haus, an activation space, repair factory as well as the brand’s main archive space.
Golden Goose was founded by Francesca Rinaldo and Alessandro Gallo in 2000 in the town of Marghera, which is the uncharismatic mainland portion of Italy that stands opposite what is likely the world’s most atmospheric city, Venice. It’s a brand that thrives in tension; its trademark distressed sneakers are made using the traditional Italian craftsmanship codes to look as though they were fished out of a bin (a design I saw in the company’s archives comes with actual duct tape).
And they sell: the company reported net revenues of €654.6 million in fiscal 2024, up 13 per cent versus 2023, and welcomed Joe Tsai’s Blue Pool Capital as a minority investor earlier this year. Its star motif is everywhere in southern Europe, including the posh northern suburbs of Athens, where I’m from. And while one could argue that the distressed look never really went out of style on the Continent, the Americas are the brand’s second biggest market, accounting for 40 per cent of revenue (EMEA is at 48 per cent and Asia-Pacific at 12 per cent). The company also counts 215 stores in 74 locations around the world, along with 2,600 employees. In the time of Trump, tariffs and terrible earnings calls, how come Golden Goose is coming out on top?
For CEO Silvio Campara, it’s all about community. “Fashion means culture,” he tells me, sitting in one of the repair rooms of Haus Venice. “The first call for any brand nowadays is to stay true to its original mission while connecting to its customer. Our mission at Golden Goose is to create dreams — one of the ways we do that in practice is by empowering our customers to design their own product through our co-creation experience. But we also needed a place to come together and celebrate what’s at the core of our brand. So we came up with Haus, and built the first one exactly where the brand was born 25 years ago.”
The concept goes that every year, around the time of the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Golden Goose gives the keys to Haus to different artists to interpret as they please — the first event within the space only took place last year and featured work by artists Andrés Reisinger, Fabio Viale, Maïa Régis and singer Mia Lailani. This year’s Haus is centred on a partnership with video artist Marco Brambilla and curator Jérôme Sans, called ‘Altered States’. “This collaboration came very naturally,” says Sans. “When I first visited the space, I thought about Marco, about his vocabulary and his world. It felt like he was talking to them, to the Golden Goose team. They keep talking about dreams, the vocabulary is meant to put you in a dream-like state, just like Marco’s.”
“Eighty-five per cent of our customers are between 16 to 45 years old — it’s the generation who grew up with social media and their language is video,” adds Campara. “No other artist blends the concept of dreams and the medium of video better than Marco Brambilla — he is using the language of our customers to create art.”
The space will remain open to the public throughout this coming weekend and will feature performances and workshops as well as a series of talks, all aiming to give back to Venice and the local community. “It took about eight years to make this place happen,” says chief brand officer Marco Neroni, who started working in the Marghera office in 2018. “It’s one of the biggest investments and projects we’ve ever done. It’s our way of giving back life to the area, which is totally undeveloped and industrial. Right now, it’s basically just us and the Fincantieri [Italian shipbuilding company]. But the ambition is to grow the area into a type of Brooklyn for Venice.” It seems the City of Venice is behind the concept; just last week, Golden Goose was awarded the Premio Festa di San Marco prize, granted by the City of Venice to individuals, organisations and enterprises that elevate the area’s cultural and social fabric.
This is only the second instalment of the Haus concept in Venice, but it is already not the second globally. “We also have a Haus in Mexico City and we will be opening one in a couple of months in Ginza, Tokyo. In 2026, we will open one on Madison Avenue in New York and in Istanbul’s Tersane. The ambition is to build more Haus locations around the world, based on cities where we already have a strong community or great potential for one,” explains Campara. I guess one way of making the iron hot is simply by striking.
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