David Sinatra

Sinatra did not found Stüssy and is no relation to the singer. His father, Frank Sinatra Jr., was the certified public accountant who partnered with Shawn Stussy in 1984, ran the business side for twelve years, bought Stussy's half when he left in 1996, and kept the company profitable through the worst year in its history by leaning on Japan and a new design team. David grew up around the brand and was its chief executive by 2015, at 28; the Business of Fashion called him president in 2018, and the Orange County Business Journal listed him as CEO in 2021.

His stated philosophy is "brand first, revenue second". In 2015 he told the Business of Fashion that the company had "reluctantly" done over $50 million the previous year — "it was an accident" — and that it was trying to cut back and stay small rather than become "this big monstrosity that doesn't stand for anything". The decision that goes with those words is the reported 2014 cut of about $30 million of wholesale accounts and the pivot to owned stores, which the company calls chapters: London in 2018, Paris in 2022, Milan, Chengdu and a large Nolita flagship in 2024. He has also kept the tribe idea alive as policy, hiring store staff from the brand's own fans and describing collaborations with Union and Dover Street Market as projects that probably lose money but keep the friends interested.

The contested part is the scale of what he is now building. Restraint was easy to promise at $50 million; the store expansion and the Nike collaborations of the 2020s are the most growth the company has pursued since the early 1990s, and the family does not publish the numbers that would show whether the order of brand first and revenue second has held. He has also had chances to sell — he joked in 2018 that "all the bankers came running" after Carlyle invested in Supreme — and has not. On the evidence available, he is a steward who has made the brand more valuable than he found it, and the test of that claim is still running.