From their studio in Venice, they fight as much as possible from the fashion capitals, Francesca Rinaldo and Alessandro Gallo have advanced about a decade the trend of luxury sneakers, a definition that makes the idea, but that today appears incomplete. The trend has spread throughout the world and has convinced even the most traditional footwear brands to include what we once called "tennis shoes" in the collection. 17 years after the birth of Golden Goose and ten years since the introduction of the first models - handmade and with a "used" effect that no brand offered at the time - sneakers still absorb more than half of the sales, but the two Venetian designers are managed to build a 130 million turnover brand with an estimated profitability of 30% thanks to many other product categories and a strong retail expansion in Italy and abroad.
A growth in revenues and notoriety that attracted the attention of the funds, who have competed to win Golden Goose Deluxe Brand (this is the full name, often abbreviated to GGDB). In February Carlyle, an American fund led by Marco De Benedetti in Italy, commissioned the company to Giorgio Presca, former CEO of Geox.
"We have not yet approved the financial statements, but I can anticipate that 2017 will close with a significant double-digit growth compared to 130 million in 2016 - explains Presca -. It is not only thanks to sneakers, even if it is to them that the brand owes much of the success of recent years and of brand awareness in Italy and abroad ".
A reputation based essentially on word of mouth, in turn triggered by the originality and quality of the product. «The distribution has always been very selected, another happy intuition by Francesca and Alessandro - continues Presta -. Today the brand is present in about 700 stores worldwide and has a single brand network that includes major Asian cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing. In Europe we are in Paris, London and Amsterdam. Then there are the shops in New York and, of course, Milan, Rome and Venice. Direct e-commerce and online sales made by specialized retailers like Ynap or Mytheresa.com are important, but we still believe very much in physical stores ».
The same number of single-brand stores suggests that the Golden Goose collections are complete: a total look that includes shirts, leather garments, handbags, boots with "used" effect. The founders have always been linked to the world of art and design, and have created a very particular line, called Haus (house, in German, and pronounces itself as House, house in English), which also includes stationery items.
"Shops must be welcoming, designed more to embrace the consumer than to" overwhelm "them with brand products. The most innovative stores that have recently opened demonstrate just this: it is over, I think, the era of formats and concepts dropped from above. It is enough to see what happens in Milan, one of the most vibrant cities in the retail sector and not only ».
Exports already account for 80% of turnover and the first market is the United States: a goal of which Presca and the founders are proud of. It is not easy for a "upper casualwear" brand to succeed in the country that has invented, in fact, informality in clothing and footwear.
For 2018 the CEO of Golden Goose is also optimistic thanks to the increasingly segmented and accurate data collected with the Crm and the analysis of Internet traffic. "The target age has expanded, we have customers ranging from 25 to 55 years - concludes Presca -. There is a casualization of the formal, as they say in America, which favors us. But the real competitive advantage is the craftsmanship of the product and its DNA and it is in this mix that the Carlyle fund has seen the great potential of the brand ».
