James Veloria’s Virtual Vintage Oasis

CJW: I was totally unaware. I would always thrift as a way of getting something different, even if it wasn’t necessarily “cooler.” K-Mart was fashion in my town, but I was into crafts and art.

BVG: When you Google his name, all this stuff comes up about him being an origami master! People still do YouTube videos of patterns he created. I was into crafts too. I loved that segment on House of Style where Todd Oldham put together looks he had crafted together.

BVG: I would sell on eBay when I needed extra money.

CJW: I was actually a librarian back in San Francisco, but I wanted to work in fashion. I needed something different, but I had no experience, no school, nothing. Getting older, I thought I had to try and see what happens.

BV: I was naked. It was in a hot tub at a party and Collin was very drunk.

CJW: We both moved to Oakland, California from Wisconsin and Ohio and we were into the punk scene there. It took me a year to talk to him. He always looked so different to everyone else. I think that was what attracted me.

BV: That was in 2011, and we stayed together long distance because I was leaving for New York. I moved here with 180 dollars and two bags of vintage clothes. I lived in Chinatown and would get lunch in Soho, and at the time street style photos were really popular. People would take my photo and ask me to assist on shoots and borrow from my closet because I had these vintage pieces. When it got really hard, I sold some to make the rent. When I ran out of money, I went to the Narciso Rodiguez office and asked to intern. I think they thought I was crazy but they said yes.

CJW: It got tough before it got good. We got shingles out of stress for being so broke but we were still always collecting on eBay. From there, people would start coming to the apartment because they knew we had stuff.

BVG: We started taking it seriously. We called ourselves James Veloria, our middle names, and started doing the Bushwick Flea Market—lugging bags of clothes because we couldn’t afford an Uber. We met so many people from that market. Mike and Bobby from Eckhaus Latta were some of our first customers ever.

CJW: That was where we met Humberto [Leon]. He was at Kenzo and I didn’t even know who he was to be honest. He asked if we had a showroom. We lied and said yes, so he came to our fourth-floor walk-up in Bed-Stuy and we had made our living room this showroom and he bought everything from us.

CJW: We are constantly shopping on every website. People bring stuff to the store and sell it to us. If we go away, we make an effort to thrift.

BVG: It’s kind of a dream come true. We find things in the closets of the fabulous women who’ve lived in New York for decades.

BVG: Almost every older lady shows up at the door in a leotard, holding a bottle of white wine! This one woman who lived on the Upper East Side, she only has Fendi furs, Alaïa, Moschino. She tried to get us to drink the entire time and dance with her.

CJW: One of the most amazing collections we ever found was the Margiela collection. A lady got in contact and asked if we’d want to come to her apartment because she was looking to sell. She had about six racks, pristine, dating back to the first collection. We couldn’t even choose what to buy and we had just moved into the store. We rented a little room next door and turned it into a Margiela pop-up. We had another lady who was sort of the same, when we did our Tom Ford for Gucci specials.

CJW: You don’t. A month before the Margiela thing we did a Prada sport collection at Opening Ceremony. It wasn’t a thing yet. And then a year later, you could not find it anywhere.

BVG: Then we did Gaultier with OC, and the Supreme collaboration happened six months later. We also did an all-British designer pop up with them, McQueen, Galliano and Westwood, and that was just as Westwood corsets became huge again. We used to sell them for 200 dollars.

BVG: We feel incredibly lucky. We want cute downtown people to have access to these things. It’s about the community.

CJW: That’s why OC closing is so sad, but their ethos is so much a part of who we are. A fun place for people to hang out. Like how the Fiorucci store was, and Patricia Field. Wigs, dancing, and drag! One of the great things is that celebrities just mix into the store with regulars and you wouldn’t even notice. Chloe Sevigny, Solange—[she] just lined up to use the fitting room, we didn’t even see her come in. And Miley Cyrus, she’s like our fairy godmother!

BVG: Her stylist shops us on Instagram and just bills us. Boxes of stuff.

CJW: You can tell right away when something doesn't look right. Even if the tag looks okay but just doesn't make sense for that designer—maybe it's stitched on weird. It’s knowing how to tell what collection it's from. So many of my librarian skills have carried over!

CJW: It’s hard, sometimes designers just do a cheaper version of what they already did.

BVG: Like Fiorucci. I was so sad by Fiorucci’s comeback. Romeo Gigli and Matsuda would be great because the fabrics were so beautiful. I think the thing that makes the most sense with our aesthetic is Todd Oldham.

CJW: When we have an idea, we make it in limited batches.

BVG: And it would have to be made out of pieces that are existing. You go to Goodwill and there's like 500 white button-ups. Doing it in a way that’s craft, rather than crafty.

BVG: I always go back to Margiela because I think the ideas are so whimsical and fun. The world doesn’t need any more stuff! When we start designing, I think Margiela will always be a starting influence. Gaultier too.

CJW: A big part of our sensibility is that we don’t take things too seriously. It’s fashion, you know?