Following a year-long hiatus, What Goes Around Comes Around, New York’s most premier luxury vintage purveyor, has made a triumphant return to NYC.
In typical “What Goes Around Comes Around” fashion, the city’s leading luxury pre-owned vintage business has reopened its first-ever home in the original 2,500 sq. foot location (351 West Broadway).
Founded in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood in 1993, WGACA has long been the go-to spot for fashion insiders, celebrities, and collectors alike to stock up on exceptionally exquisite and pristine pieces.
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Its newly redesigned flagship location aims to elevate the already luxurious experience while maintaining key elements of its heritage.
With a focus on a curation of the rarest and most coveted pieces from WGACA's extensive collection, shoppers can find an array of ’80s and '90s vintage Chanel, a comprehensive Hermès selection, iconic Louis Vuitton artist collaborations, specialty/limited edition runway pieces, as well as a huge selection of the brand’s hallmark vintage denim and rock tees dating back to the store's opening in the early ’90s.
The store features original beams and cast-iron columns punctuated by French Mid Century Chandeliers and Sconces resulting in an evolved aesthetic that marries the contemporary with old-world charm.
We connected with the What Goes Around Comes Around Founders, Seth Weisser and Gerard Maione, to discuss how their business has remained at the forefront of the industry for nearly three decades.
How does your store symbolize the resilience of vintage fashion over the years?
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Since 1993 when we opened our Soho Flagship, we knew it was a journey to educate and advance the consumer appreciation and acceptance of vintage fashion. It has been a long process over our 29 years but today customers all across the country and the world are comfortable buying pre-owned items. There is something special about finding a vintage item and what it represents is clearly timeless.
Where do you think the future of vintage fashion is heading?
The future is transforming into brands being the driver in the Vintage industry. Today with the rise of the circular economy, consumers buy with the knowledge that items can all be resold. This has expanded the audience and appreciation of vintage. It used to be about specific time periods and fashion from that era, but the shift to buying based on brands has been evolving for the past 20 years. We are also seeing a major shift in investment and collectability within our business. The brands we offer continue to show valid appreciation of key collections over time and believe there is a valid view of the consumer identification of the value proposition Vintage offers.
How is your store filling an essential gap in the market?
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Our store has become a destination for collectors of fashion as well as the customer who seeks individuality. We offer the widest range from the most important brands in the world. We provide a competitive option against the brands to give our clients a choice within these brands. Offering the best of all eras and collections from the top fashion houses has filled an important place for the consumer.
New York City is saturated with tons of designer consignment shops. How does What Goes Around Comes Around stand out amongst the rest?
WGACA has always set the standard for resale in not only NYC but the world. We buy every item in our store and do so with meticulous attention to style, condition, and authenticity. We buy based on trend and curate a collection of the finest pieces from each brand and each era. Combining the luxury selection with our true vintage is something that no other retailer offers.
How have you cultivated such a strong celebrity following over the years?
Our celebrity clientele love WGACA because they can always find the rarest and most exclusive pieces when shopping our stores. Celebrities always take risks and want items that help them make the best statement while also not being able to be copied. The Vintage and luxury pieces we curate have always set them in the right direction. They also love the level of expertise and customer service we offer while respecting their privacy to help make their experience as comfortable as possible. We have built a true sense of trust with them as well as our incredible clientele of top collections, stylists and fashion lovers who come to us to be inspired.
What Goes Around Comes Around is one of the only stores that has remained constant in Soho despite an influx of change over the past three decades. What is your secret to staying relevant?
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We have always been a business that adjusted to the changing nature of fashion. Our attention to detail, key sense of trend and incredible passion has been part of our success story. We have always taken the highest road of customer service and set the bar for personalization which has been challenging for others in the fashion industry. Our incredible teams of buying and stylists have helped build impeccable collections and relationships which have helped us ride the waves for nearly three decades of retail business.
What is the symbolic significance of returning to your Soho roots? What do you hope to accomplish with this venture?
We never left so it was more of a moment to redesign the original West Broadway store in the image we have going forward as a company. The store was last redesigned in 2003 when we expanded our footprint in the original location but with this new evolution it has truly become one store. Gerard Maione, our co-founder, helped to recreate the vision he set for our Beverly Hills flagship store while maintaining the aesthetic of the Soho vintage store and landmark building to create the perfect combination of our two worlds. We now have reset the bar for all of our retail locations and we hope that the long-standing clients, as well as the new ones, will be excited to join us in our ever-evolving journey.
How has your brand’s DNA code evolved over time? What has stayed the same? What has changed?
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When we opened in 1993 we didn’t even consider the 1980s as vintage. Our store was showing pieces from 1880-1970 and was a curated journey through many different eras of fashion. We always have a keen eye and high-level taste which helped develop our following and brand reputation. As the time passed we continued to move with the changes to both fashion and consumer demand to shift from being about era to being more focused on the most important brands that we have now become synonymous for representing. What has remained is our incredible passion for high fashion, trendsetting through our curation and offering the highest personalization of customer service we can offer. Additionally, true to our roots we still have the world's most comprehensive collection of vintage Levi’s and tee shirts mixed in with a tight edit of the best pieces from the vintage eras of the past.
Why do you think your store is critical to the circular fashion economy?
What Goes Around Comes Around speaks directly to that question with our brand name. We have bought and sold many of our pieces over and over within our twenty-nine-year history. The best quality pieces have always been coveted and continue to have long lives as they reenter the circular economy with regularity. We were a green and sustainable company long before these words became something many new companies aspire to capture. We have great respect for the past and the quality that comes with it and understand that high quality and fashion are truly timeless. Hence, the name What Goes Around Comes Around.
Photography by: Courtesy WGACA, Laura Chouette
