Out Late: How 2010s nightlife shaped NYC’s favorite vintage store
“Out Late” is Time Out’s nightlife and party column by DJ, Whorechata founder, and Staff Writer Ian Kumamoto, which will publish every other Tuesday. The previous edition was about the rise in popularity of supper clubs.
You’d be hard pressed to find a vintage store anywhere in the world that feels as cool or as irreverent as James Veloria. Arriving there is like trying to find your way to a party you heard about from a cultured friend-of-a-friend: To find it, you must snake your way through the graffitied mall at 75 East Broadway under the Manhattan Bridge, then trek past abandoned hallways and shops that have been shuttered since the pandemic, giving the whole experience a post-apocalyptic mood. The store itself, once you find it upstairs, is the antithesis of the building it inhabits: The explosion of colors, patterns and textured walls is a delicious assault on the eyes.
On its racks, you’ll find vintage Comme des Garçons, Vivienne Tam and other designer brands that have defined New York style since the ’90s. But to regard James Veloria as simply a vintage shop is a mistake—it’s a remnant of an era in New York City culture and nightlife that was bold, collaborative and continues to define what the city wears out today.
James Veloria is the baby of Brandon Veloria and Collin James, who are married. The couple had never planned on working retail when they started curating clothes around 2016—they really did just have impeccable taste and a knack for finding good items. Together, they’d scour their closets to style their friends, who were DJs, models and nightlife personalities. Their formula was simple: “We had day jobs we hated, we loved thrifting for crazy outfits, and we went out at night,” James tells me.
We had day jobs we hated, we loved thrifting for crazy outfits, and we went out at night.
While going out to places like The Standard and Ladyfag’s infamously decadent parties, they quickly found their customer base. “We literally sold shirts off our backs at bars,” says Veloria. “People would be out and say ‘Oh I like your outfit,’ and we would say, ‘You can buy it right now!’”
As word spread about the couple’s clothes, celebrity stylists approached them and would ask for free things, but the pair always shooed them off. “The concept of our store came from wanting to see certain people wearing certain clothes,” Veloria says. “It was just a lot more fun to see our friends wearing things,” James adds. There was something radical about taking high-end clothing “made for Upper East Side white ladies” (Veloria’s words), and giving those clothes to a queer raver who might be found snorting lines at The Cock (my own words). “We were taking it from the Uptown world of Bergdorf and bringing it downtown for someone who probably couldn’t afford it. It was like Robin Hood, and we were bringing clothes back to life after 20-30 years,” says James.
Finally, in 2017, the couple opened their first brick-and-mortar store in the crumbling Chinatown Mall inside a tight space their friend found on Craigslist, where the rent was a meager $800 a month. A year later, The New York Times wrote a piece about it called “I’m About to Reveal a Secret Spot. Sorry Not Sorry,” and business boomed. They had to move to a bigger space inside the same mall, and got even bigger when they were featured at Opening Ceremony’s now defunct stores.
You can’t talk about James Veloria without talking about its wacky interior, which was, like everything else in there—a collaboration. The most striking decor in there are the piñatas that look like glittery spaceships created by Nicholas Valite Andersen, who co-founded the party decor brand Confetti System alongside his friend Julie Ho.
The ethos of Confetti System lives in the same post-2008-NYC-nightlife-boom multiverse that James Veloria also inhabits. It was a time when creative collaboration across mediums like interior design, fashion, and nightlife were the norm, especially for artists who shared cultural affinities in those mostly homogenous industries (both Andersen and Veloria are half-Filipino). Anderson’s approach to decorating was unique for the time—no one was really making party decorations that were also works of art. “Party objects were things that usually you would just pick up for as cheap as possible at a store,” Andersen tells me. For all its ills, Andersen remembers a post-recession city as a place that appreciated carefully crafted physical objects. “There was a need for some kind of relief and moments of joy. It was right before Instagram, so there was still an element of surprise in creating really unique spaces.”
There was a need for some kind of relief and moments of joy. It was right before Instagram, so there was still an element of surprise in creating really unique spaces.
Andersen would go on to become the lead set designer for Bubble_T, one of the first Asian-centered queer parties in New York, as well as Papi Juice, both of which shaped New York City club culture in the 2010s and were instructive to many of the club nights of the 2020s.
For Veloria and James, it’s also important to staff their store with people who just get it—it’s why they work with people like West Dakota, a beloved drag queen and performer in Brooklyn’s queer scene, and someone you might find behind the counter at James Veloria on any given day. “I met Brandi and Collin back in 2017,” Dakota tells me. “They reached out after their friend Dani had seen me at a show and suggested we shoot together… For years I was pulling the most fabulous looks for shows and events and everyone knew: it’s from JV.”
In these ways, James Veloria was partially responsible for creating a culture where nightlife and vintage high fashion converged. For better or worse, Veloria tells me, vintage designers weren’t so precious when they first entered the scene. You could find vintage Margiela for $30 at Beacon’s closet, and wearing designer was subversive in a culture that valued convenience and mass production over quality. Now, at a time where who you are and what you wear matters more than ever, there is a whole culture of collectors and a lot more pressure to turn out exceptional (and expensive) looks on a night out.
Whether the ubiquitous presence of designer clothes has been good or bad for New York fashion in general, we can at least agree that at its core, James Veloria was actually part of an exceptionally collaborative and democratic time in New York City’s culture that stemmed from a disillusionment with capitalism. It’s a culture many of us long for post-pandemic, and one that we could try to recreate, considering none of us can afford our rents. The issue, at least in my view, is that social media culture has also created an endless supply of influencers and democratized access to niche celebritydom, making everything from fashion to nightlife all about how much clout you can gain. But the continued popularity of shops like James Veloria is evidence that there’s a longing for something more grounded, for a time when we were in physical spaces partying, shopping and, à la Nara Smith, creating new cultures from scratch.
“In New York it’s incredibly liberating because no one gives a fuck,” Veloria says. “That for us was a big part of the business.” As long as that remains true, not all has been lost.
Grand Central Terminal
November 11th – December 24th, 2024