Image via Complex Original
Preps, punkers, and the perfectly normal can revamp their looks with cent-savvy style in Boston. For guys on a budget, Boston’s vintage stores are a steal compared to New York’s pricier purveyors of retro rags. Just a touch of the old can take something over-the-top trendy and make it a one-of-a-kind look impossible to emulate. Vibrant vintage pieces can class up the quintessential college t-shirt and jeans look on the streets of Cambridge while bland businessmen in Boston can show off funky patterned blazers from the ’80s on their casual Friday. With everything from consignment stores that offer decadent duds for a killer deal to racks of whimsical chaos, Boston’s vintage shopping scene offers it all.
40 South Street
City: Jamaica Plain
Address: 40 South St.
Website: fortysouthst.com
Specializing in mod outfits from the ’60s, glam disco get-ups from the ’70s, and eye-popping ’80s outfits, 40 South Street has been around for over 30 years in one form or another. Previously a place for vintage duds for dudes called Gumshoe, the secret little sartorial cave had a punky make-over by Hilken Mancini, co-founder of uber-popular Punk Rock Aerobics and all-around badass Boston rock babe. Her picks are eclectic, easy to mix-and-match, and stand-outs like a sporty Nike windbreaker and a ’70s psychedelic koi fish shirt can be found on the 40 South Street Etsy store.
Artifaktori
City: Somerville
Address: 22A College Ave.
If you need some style notes from the underground, Artifaktori is the subterranean treasure trove to tap for carefully-curated clothing in both classic and contemporary styles. Owner Amy Berkowitz’s hunting prowess of carefully-worn beauties purged from closets has created a kaleidoscopic variety of pieces from every era, tagged with the date created and treated with the utmost of care. While some vintage stores cater exclusively to women, Artifaktori has a nook exclusively for the dudes ready to be plundered.
The Garment District
City: Cambridge
Address: 200 Broadway
Website: garment-district.com
If you wanna pop some tags and only have $20 in your pocket à la Macklemore, The Garment District is the best place in Boston to hedge bets that you’ll pick up something both flossy and frugal. The gigantic retail space processes several million pounds of vintage clothing a year and the stuff that doesn’t make it the “Shoddy Mill” to get pulverized into recycled material for green goods is what makes up the store’s 40,000 mixed-era pieces. Beyond their wide array of styles, eras, and sizes, The Garment District has a time-held ’80s tradition of selling their clothing by the pound early in the morning. For a mere $1.50 per pound, you can hunt through 850-pound bales of old bags, belts, and cool clothing for just over a buck.
Rick Walker's
City: Boston
Address: 306 Newbury St.
Website: rickwalkers.com
Buckle up, cowboy. Instead of having to search through the good, the bad, and the ugly at some moldy thrift store, Rick Walker’s in Boston curates perfect looks for the rugged urban warrior. Bearded dudes can accent their boring blue jeans with primo vintage cowboy boots, big-buckled belts, and weather-beaten leather. The Back Bay shop is about as authentic as it gets outside of Texas with Mexican blankets flanking the walls, retro cigar-smoking Native American statues repping the Lone Star State, and a real-life rooster chilling by the counter in a cage. Open for almost eight decades, Rick Walker’s now fuses its country vintage with live rock shows, earning it the nickname “rock ‘n cowboy clothes.”
The Closet
City: Boston
Address: 175 Newbury St.
Website: closetboston.com
Keep your eye on the prize. The Closet’s varied vintage finds are luxurious designer goods from days of yore rather than skanky bell bottoms from the bottom of someone’s drawer. Their blog has buyers drooling over sartorial porn that chic co-signers bring in for a fair 50/50 split check. If you’re looking for enough Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Margiela to rival Kanye West’s closet, anything modern is slashed in price. The cheap tags on these high-end treasures make the best stuff just a flash in the pan, so it’s best to go into The Closet ready to get down and dirty and with a winner-take-all mentality.
Bobby From Boston
City: Boston
Address: 19 Thayer St.
Menswear at vintage stores is often a mangled mound of wrinkled fitted shirts or musty band tees tossed in a corner, but Bobby From Boston specializes in delicately-used dapper goodies for the preppy pulled-together man with discerning tastes. Luscious leather bags in masculine shades line the walls; vintage cameras, guitars, and posters create an antiquated ambiance that is subtly chic. Owner Bobby Garnett is himself a character from a softly-rumpled chapter of time and every double-breasted wool coat or Brooks Brothers suit finds its way into his hands to be restored and repurposed.
Sault New England
City: Boston
Address: 577 Tremont St.
Website: saultne.com
Philip Saul of Sault New England has created a South End menswear boutique that appeals to both the salt of the earth and the swanky. Sault has an eclectic mix of curated vintage pieces for men that embody preppy New England vibes with a salty Boston maritime twist. Typical finds include a vintage L.L Bean button-down perfectly balanced with some clean-cut Jack Spade. They have spendy grooming products by brands like Juniper Ridge and Ursa Major for the cultured mustachioed man or the baby-faced banker, locally sourced goods, bow-ties by Forage, and even cool flasks by Izola. For those with a porcine obsession, Saul custom designed a pork belly t-shirt that would go perfect with those soft vintage jeans that his “yupster dude-man bros” clientele (as he likes to call them) loves to wear.
Oona's Experienced Clothing
City: Cambridge
Address: 1210 Massachusetts Ave.
Website: oonasboston.com
Like that more experienced college dream crush you had in high school, Oona’s Experienced Clothing probably has a lot more character than the garden variety trendy high street shop. The Harvard Square fixture has outfitted the sartorially savvy since 1972 and offers a variety of hand-picked pieces from the Depression-era ’30s to the high-strung ’80s. The clothing is showcased like works of art, ensconced in dark wood, red velvet chairs with gold trim, and Persian rugs that make the space like stepping into some Parisian boudoir from the ’20s. Themed spaces, like Sherlock Holmes for the men and Rococo-inspired ladies parlor, keeps with the experiential theme and makes shopping at Oona’s Experienced Clothing an artistic adventure. Owner, 27-year-old Ellie Mueller, was once a customer and part-time employee who fell in love with the store and the gently-used garb within, turning it into her own closet of fairly-priced, finely-loved goodies.
SoWa Open Market
City: Boston
Address: 460 Harrison Ave.
Website: sowaopenmarket.com
Not a vintage store per se, but SoWa Open Market offers three glorious rooms full of vintage clothing, trinkets, and antiques, all hand-picked for the season and the trends. If you don’t like digging through racks of dusty clothing, the vendors at SoWa often consolidate their goods into stylish stackables. Open every Sunday, from May to October, Bostonians flock to SoWa Open Market to combine all their shopping needs, but clothing lovers know that the market is the place to hit up for deeply-discounted duds. Although the Sunday clothing worship ended in October, SoWa is setting up for their festive 2013 holiday market on Dec. 14 and 15 for all your briefly-used, big-ticket items and vintage stocking stuffers.
Second Time Around
City: Boston
Address: 176 Newbury St.
Website: secondtimearound.net
Have expensive tastes? Put down the silver spoon and head to Second Time Around, an insanely upscale resale and vintage store that showcases luxe brands like Chanel, Dior, and Prada. This two-story paradise is like a vintage lover’s fantasy—or the closets out of The Bling Ring. While some may debate that many of the items are truly “vintage,” Second Time Around offers a wide array of goods and won’t discriminate if something is on trend. Baby fine cashmere coats can cost a bundle when you want to bundle up, but a cashmere Dior blazer from the ’80s with seasonal plaid accents? Totally what you’d see turn up at Second Time Around.