Just outside of Venice in the former industrial port of Marghera, Golden Goose once again transformed its creative headquarters into one of Biennale week’s more unexpected destinations. This year, for the third installment of Haus—Golden Goose’s ongoing cultural platform dedicated to art, craft, and community—the brand handed the keys over to Los Angeles creative studio Playlab, Inc., whose founders Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin are best known for building immersive worlds that sit somewhere between installation, fashion spectacle, and childhood fantasy.
Over the past two decades, Playlab has been shaping unforgettable visual moments in fashion and pop culture. The duo worked closely with Virgil Abloh for years, crafting some of his most ambitious runway sets for Louis Vuitton along with multidiscplinary projects, installations and campaigns for the likes of Marc Jacobs and Nike. Their work often feels playful, surreal, and slightly absurd—think: oversized inflatable objects, hidden jokes, and cartoonish color palettes filtered through a distinctly emotional lens. That sensibility made them a natural fit for Golden Goose, which collaborated with Abloh and Off-White back in 2016 on one of the designer’s earliest sneaker partnerships.
Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin of Playlab, Inc.
This year’s Haus installation, titled The Forest For The Trees, transformed the massive warehouse space into an interactive storybook inspired, in part, by the hand-drawn animation of Disney’s Bambi (1942). Guests began by tossing a leaf into water before wandering through a sequence of theatrical environments: painting miniature wooden trees, walking through sensory tunnels of woodland sounds and light projections, and eventually arriving inside a sprawling handcrafted forest built by Italian artisans. The evening concluded with a vegan dinner in which hors d’oeuvres—cheese bon bons, crispy edible leaves, and a “basket” of asparagus dip—were “planted” within seemingly endless moss-covered tablescapes, only furthering the interactive affair.
A guest reaches for a cheese bonbon with forest-inspired curry.
Speaking to press before the night unfolded, Golden Goose CEO Silvio Campara explained that he considers himself the “Chief Emotion Officer”, noting that, in an era increasingly shaped by the neverending, impersonal scroll of digital consumption, the most successful luxury brands must offer something tactile and human in order to thrive. “It isn’t about the brand,” he explained, emphasizing the importance of experiences and collaboration over just product. “People need to feel something.”
