Some places tell you more about a company than any balance sheet ever could. For Autry, that place is a 17th-century villa in Dolo, along the Brenta Riviera, between Padua and Venice. Visitors enter through an Italian-style garden, before the scenery changes: expansive windows, white walls, lemon houses and centuries-old trees.
The architecture retains the character of a historic residence, but its rooms tell a very different story — one of contemporary creativity and research. It is hard to believe that this is the headquarters of one of the fastest-growing sneaker brands of recent years.
A Californian campus in the Veneto
And yet around 180 people, most of them under 35, work inside the villa on Autry’s collections and international development. It feels like a Californian campus, except that we are in the Veneto. Marco Doro, one of the entrepreneurs behind the brand’s revival, wanted shared workspaces, plenty of natural light and greenery within sight. He also fostered a sense of community that extends to a collective lunch, scheduled for 1 pm and considered non-negotiable — never to be sacrificed for meetings.
“What’s Italian is the management, the mindset, the values and a certain entrepreneurial flair. What’s American is the imagery and the ambition,” he explains.
Bringing an iconic brand back to life
The story began in 1982, when Jim Autry, an American with a passion for tennis, founded a sports footwear brand that gradually faded from view during the Nineties. Then, in 2019, four Italian entrepreneurs decided to bring it back.
“We found the creative madness of one man. A handful of original shoes, old magazines and some incredible advertising.” And so began a journey through vintage models and archives. It was almost an archaeological undertaking, because “when you revive an iconic brand, you have to respect its DNA. You can't simply buy an old name and build something completely different on top of it. It doesn't work.”
The result was the Medalist, with its Eighties-inspired aesthetic, clean lines and carefully considered proportions. “We wanted to create a minimalist shoe, one that would be instantly recognisable.”
The market was initially sceptical. “When we approached multi-brand retailers such as Antonia and Sugar with a €160 sneaker, they looked at us as if we were crazy. Then they started selling them at an incredible rate.”
Within just a few years, Autry had reached €150 million in revenue, secured a presence in 1,000 retail outlets and found its way onto the feet of Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley and Pedro Pascal. Its success was built on a retro aesthetic that went from being a potential commercial limitation to one of the brand’s defining characteristics.
Growing without losing its identity
In 2024, private equity firm Style Capital acquired a controlling stake in the company. In September 2026, Danilo Piarulli joined as CEO, following 13 years at Golden Goose. “For me, the key lesson is an obsession with the consumer. For years, we imagined the designer as a genius locked away in a room. But fashion no longer works that way.”
Piarulli wants to grow the brand without compromising its identity. “Autry is not a luxury brand, nor does it want to be. Our space is sports chic.” But the competition extends well beyond sneakers. “Consumers divide their spending across fashion, travel, hospitality, restaurants and experiences.”
Expanding across the world
The ambition, then, is to build a distinctive lifestyle universe: broaden the offering and break into new markets without becoming just another indistinguishable brand.
The company now has 12 stores across Europe and Asia, a selective distribution network and plans to invest in the United States, Japan and South Korea, where K-pop superstar Changbin of Stray Kids has become a global ambassador.
“Being global means identifying your audience and establishing a dialogue with them.”
Piarulli takes the long view: “Shareholders and managers may change, but a business must keep growing.”
In Dolo, amid 17th-century frescoes and sneakers, the past seems to be the only thing nobody is in a hurry to change. Everything else is moving at full speed.
This article was reviewed by an external translation partner