Golden Goose: Fibre-Led Circularity in Luxury Fashion

What does circularity look like when applied to the realities of Italian luxury fashion?

Known for its handcrafted Made in Italy approach and distinctive lived-in aesthetic, luxury fashion brand Golden Goose has built a global identity around products designed to evolve with wear, carry emotional value and remain part of customers’ wardrobes over time. Sneakers can be repaired and customised in-store, collections evolve through continuity rather than constant reinvention, and craftsmanship remains deeply embedded in the brand’s culture.

That philosophy became the starting point for a new ambition: exploring how circularity could be developed through a concrete product initiative while preserving the tactile quality, visual identity and recognisable character that define a Golden Goose product.

To begin the process, the team looked closely at the company’s own production system, analysing where circularity could realistically take shape within an existing product category. One opportunity quickly emerged: the cotton offcuts generated during the production of T-shirts. What is often treated as unavoidable manufacturing waste suddenly became the focus of a new line of enquiry: could these remnants be recovered, transformed back into yarn and reintroduced into the product cycle itself?

What followed evolved into a highly collaborative product development process at fibre level, where repeated experimentation, supplier dialogue, and material refinement gradually shaped the final outcome. Along the way, assumptions around recycled and organic materials were challenged, technical limitations surfaced, with the project becoming a practical exploration of what circularity actually requires when applied to fashion products that need to meet the expectations of luxury consumers.

The tangible outcome is the SoulCycle T-Shirts Collection: t-shirts made with 50% recycled cotton, achieving Cradle to Cradle Certified® Bronze under the highly demanding Version 4.1 of the standard, with Silver level achievement in the Product Circularity category.

More significantly, the process revealed how circularity in fashion relies on levels of material understanding, refinement and collaboration far deeper than the finished product itself might reveal.

Production Offcuts as Opportunity

For Mirko Gradi, Material Innovation & Product Circularity Manager at Golden Goose, the project began by focusing on what was already moving through the company’s supply chain.

“T-shirts are the bread and butter of every brand. We already had the supply chain mapped, and we already had the offcuts. The question became whether we could recover them and turn them back into an input material.”

The apparent simplicity of the T-shirt became part of the opportunity. Behind a familiar wardrobe staple sat the possibility to rethink how material flows could operate inside an existing fashion system.

Once the feasibility of recovering and respinning the cotton offcuts had been validated, the project gradually evolved into a contained material loop built almost entirely within Golden Goose’s established supplier network. Production remnants were collected, transformed into yarn through collaboration with a spinning partner and reintroduced into a new fabric capable of returning into the company’s product offering.

That pragmatism became one of the defining strengths of the initiative. By working with known material streams and long-standing supplier relationships, the team was able to maintain greater consistency, traceability and control throughout development. 

50% Recycled Cotton as a Material Breakthrough

One of the most revealing discoveries emerged through the development of the fabric itself.

At a time when recycled content claims are increasingly common across fashion marketing, the project revealed how difficult it can be to translate circularity into a material capable of meeting real product expectations.

Golden Goose tested several compositions, including a 70% recycled and 30% virgin cotton blend. But as the percentage of mechanically recycled cotton increased, the physical behaviour of the material itself began to shift. During recycling, cotton fibres become shorter, directly affecting yarn strength, durability and fabric consistency.

“The more recycled fibre you add, the weaker the yarn becomes. You always need a balance.”

The final composition emerged through repeated rounds of testing and refinement, where circularity needed to coexist with softness, resistance, texture and the overall feel expected from the final garment. In this context, the 50% recycled content became less a limitation than a carefully calibrated balance between circularity and product integrity.

Further experimentation with organic cotton also revealed unexpected complexities around material purity and traceability, reinforcing how circular garment development often depends as much on process control and consistency as on the sustainability profile attached to a fibre.

Circularity That Can Stand in Store

One of the defining tensions throughout the project was that the product still needed to feel unmistakably part of the Golden Goose universe.

In fashion, circularity cannot exist separately from identity. The weight of a fabric, the texture of the cotton, the way a jersey falls and even how a garment evolves through wear all contribute to whether it ultimately belongs within a collection and resonates with customers.

This meant the project could never focus only on recycled content percentages or technical achievements in isolation. The material itself still needed to embody the tactile and visual language of the brand.

“A material can be excellent, but if it doesn’t work for the product, it’s not the right choice.”

The challenge therefore became not simply how to create a circular material, but how to create one capable of carrying the aesthetic, quality and emotional expectations attached to a Golden Goose product.

Innovation at the Speed of Trust

Behind the technical development sat another essential ingredient: a supply chain built on long-term relationships.

To make the project work, partners played an active role at every stage, from recovering and separating production offcuts to adapting processes and sharing detailed material information required throughout the certification journey.

Initial conversations were not always straightforward.

“At the beginning, the answer is often no. ‘I don’t have the time,’ or ‘I don’t have the resources.’ But then, little by little, people come on board.”

Over time, the project became a catalyst for deeper dialogue across the supply chain, helping partners collectively explore new ways of thinking about waste recovery, material sourcing and product development.

Because many of Golden Goose’s suppliers have worked with the company for years, there was already a foundation of openness and trust capable of supporting experimentation and problem-solving across organisational boundaries.

The process ultimately demonstrated how circular innovation often depends not only on materials or technologies, but on relationships strong enough to evolve together.

Every Component Counts in Cradle to Cradle Certified®

Golden Goose initially pursued Cradle to Cradle Certified® as a way to place the project within a rigorous and externally credible framework while advancing its circularity ambitions through a concrete material innovation project.

Within the Cradle to Cradle Certified® framework, circularity extends beyond recycled content alone. The methodology evaluates how materials are sourced, recovered and kept in continuous cycles of use, while also considering aspects such as material health, product composition and the broader systems connected to the product lifecycle.

As the work progressed, the methodology began revealing how many hidden layers sit behind even an apparently simple product such as a T-shirt. The assessment extended far beyond the cotton jersey itself to include sewing threads, labels, dyes, chemical inputs and auxiliary materials connected to the final garment.

“At first, I thought the focus would mainly be on the material itself,” says Gradi. “Instead, we found ourselves analysing every component, down to the sewing thread.”

For the team, the process became an exercise in understanding the product almost layer by layer, exposing the interconnected nature of materials, suppliers and chemical inputs inside a single garment.

Advancing Circularity Through Certification

Working with Vugge til Vugge throughout the Cradle to Cradle Certified® assessment process, the team found that the methodology progressively expanded the scope of the exercise far beyond the recycled cotton itself, pushing the company to investigate sourcing, material inputs and product composition at a much deeper level.

The decision to pursue Silver level achievement within the Product Circularity category reflected that same ambition. Existing initiatives around repair, product longevity and take-back systems had already positioned the company beyond baseline requirements, encouraging the team to push the project further rather than stopping at an entry-level certification achievement.

According to Lucia Alfieri, Environmental Coordinator within Golden Goose’s sustainability team, the framework fundamentally changed the way the company approached product development internally.

Beyond external validation, the Cradle to Cradle Certified® methodology became a catalyst for learning, helping the company investigate products at a much deeper level and uncover the complexity hidden inside even the most familiar garments.

Beyond the T-shirt

For Golden Goose, the circular T-shirt represents a first step rather than a finished solution.

What began as an exploration around production offcuts evolved into a broader understanding of how circularity functions in practice: through experimentation, technical refinement, supplier collaboration and continuous learning.

The SoulCycle T-Shirts project ultimately demonstrated that circularity is not simply about introducing recycled content into a product. It is about understanding materials more deeply, taking relationships across the supply chain to new depths, and developing products capable of balancing innovation with the identity, quality, and emotional durability that define the brand itself.