Welcome to the Scoop: a weekly email series in which we quiz fashion insiders on the stories of the week. Every interview will appear in your inboxes every Friday and on this page the following Thursday.
The person I called on to inaugurate the series was Golden Goose CEO Silvio Campara. I’d vowed to stop writing about the Italian sneaker company after this interview around their 20th anniversary. But then on December 19 at 5pm CET, as I was preparing to turn off my laptop for Christmas, Golden Goose announced it had sold the company to Chinese investment firm HSG. So, now that we are all done feasting and ready to seize 2026, I had to check back in with Silvio to find out what it all really means.
Hi Silvio, thanks for being the first guest on the Scoop! You’ve had a very busy end to 2025. What’s the scoop on that?
That Friday when we announced the sale, I was so tired. You are one of my first interviews of the year and I want to tell the true story of this project. I have been working on this for a long time — remember, this is the fifth round for me. The deal is sizable, more than we’d imagined — especially for a brand our size. But speaking about finances oversimplifies it. The fact that HSG, who are based in the hub of innovation and technology that is China, paid the amount they did for one of the most analogue brands ever — a brand with distressed products focused on co-creation — that’s what I want to focus on. This deal wasn’t about just delivering good numbers for one year, which we did consistently, but making sure that we were clear on our company’s trajectory over the next ten.
What do those next 10 years look like then?
These days, people are so frustrated. They lack authentic time with others — real connections are scarce. Twenty years ago, luxury was defined by product, but these days you can find luxury products everywhere, even in airports. It’s time and experiences that are the real luxury.
More than half of the population get married by the time they are 45 years old, and they usually have one or two kids. And they have a problem: where do I go with my kids in our free time? I tell them, come to my store and you don’t have to buy sneakers — you can spend a beautiful afternoon here with your kids doing things with your hands, creating. That’s the future and it’s scalable because I’m already doing this in Mexico City, in Tokyo, in Dallas — in all my Haus stores. It’s proven to be 20% of my revenues. It’s big. So the next phase of Golden Goose is to allow for more experiences, based on art and craft.
I remember in the first interview we ever did, you said that if you give someone the opportunity to create, then you have a customer for life.
Exactly. I’m not a genius. I’m simply fast at catching social trends, as opposed to fashion trends. People right now need to prove to themselves that they are still useful. That still they still have value. Because this phone that you carry around with you every day, every day tells you that you are not enough. So having a moment where you can create something using your hands can give you back your sense of self-worth.
If you are growing the size of the stores, are you also looking to bring in other brands and companies for collaborations?
If the future is about community, then you need to make the community more interesting. If I’m looking to do pottery in New York, I’m going to ask the best pottery brand in New York to help me put this together. So then I can take advantage of their community, add it to my community, and let people come together. Authenticity is more important than scarcity, because authenticity is really scarcity. You don t have to pay $2,000 to have something scarce, if you are part of the process of creating it.
And Marco Bizzarri will be non-executive chairman of Golden Goose in this new phase. He was on your board previously too. How did that come about?
He is the perfect person for the role in what I call our brand’s gentle revolution. We have to always remember what he did with Gucci, what he did at Bottega, how he invented Stella McCartney. He was the first to create H&M with Stella McCartney. He’s a revolutionary. He was on our board before but it’s not the same as being chairman. He’s also so excited. He’s also invested. It s so nice to see him so emotionally involved in the brand — he said Golden Goose isn’t a social network, it’s a human network.
And you are staying in your role?
I have invested too much of my own money and time to go anywhere.
Speaking of leadership changes, the big news of this week so far have been the promotions at Givenchy and Dior. I know you are friends with Alessandro Valenti, who was just promoted from his post as CEO of Givenchy to deputy managing director in charge of commercial activities at Christian Dior Couture. What s your read on these changes at LVMH?
It’s amazing news! The perfect direction for LVMH. Alessandro is a great human being and I know he will bring more humanity to this super luxury heritage brand. Nobody ever called Alessandro Valenti, Mr. Valenti. Everyone calls him Alessandro. That says a lot.
On the news of Francesco Risso’s appointment at Japanese retail company Fast Retailing: you were speaking about China before being a hub of innovation earlier. We are seeing many designers look to Asian companies for their next steps. Kim Jones was recently appointed at Areal. Kris van Assche at Anta Sports. How do you read this turn towards Asia?
It makes total sense. There’s so much going on — the word on the macros is going into a new order. The fashion system will follow. I mean, literally tomorrow I’m flying over to China, and meeting local designers is a big part of the schedule.
Meanwhile the economies of the West are suffering. What are your thoughts on Saks CEO Marc Metrick stepping down to be replaced by chairman Richard Baker?
Marc Metrick has been leading a huge and risky merging, which means his priority were financial covenants instead of reinventing retail. I think with Richard Baker at the helm now, Saks has an opportunity to rethink itself and follow the Selfridges example. Delivering special experiences and products in concessions while investing in new niche brands in the multibrand areas. There’s already so much retail on the streets of New York, you don’t need to have the same stores with the same products in the department stores too.
Is the news affecting you as a vendor?
I’ve made the decision to focus on our own stores from the beginning. We also aren’t a heritage brand so we never had anything to defend — we have always been a company in offense. Always creating our own path. We rethought the roles of the merchandisers. Rewarded merchandisers on customer retention for example, instead of sell through. Sell-through has been killing the business because it leads to everyone doing the same thing over and over again.
Do you have any consumer trend predictions for 2026?
Co-creation. Co-creation. Co-creation. Co-creation. Co-creation.
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