South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Keeping The RealReal real
The trash bags seemingly contained a treasure trove. Comme des Garçons, Maison Margiela, Helmut Lang and Jean Paul Gaultier were all names on the tags of the clothes stuffed inside.
The 10 black plastic bags had arrived in September at a 500,000-square-foot building in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where The RealReal, a luxury resale marketplace, operates one of four authentication centers. They had been sent by a seller who said the clothes came from a vintage store that her aunt ran in Florida. After poring over the bags’ contents, about 100 garments in total, it was determined that the clothes were real — and that they could sell secondhand for as much as $100,000.
“These are some of the best Gaultier pieces we have ever come across,” said Dominik Halás, a master authenticator at The RealReal who specializes in vintage clothing, which the company defines as pieces that are at least 20 years old.
Halás, 29, is one of youngest people entrusted by The RealReal to authenticate garments, jewelry and other accessories. Previously a menswear merchandising manager and archival expert at the company, where he started working in 2017, he was asked to join the authentication team soon after it started reselling vintage clothing in 2019, the same year The RealReal became a publicly traded company.
“We needed the right experts,” said Rachel Vaisman, vice president of merchandising operations. Although The RealReal has carried vintage handbags since it started in 2011, vintage clothing required “a specialized expert with the extensive knowledge and passion,” she added.
A passion for (vintage) fashion
Recently, at the authentication center, Halás was working his way through pieces from the shipment of 10 trash bags that had arrived weeks before. The clothes, most of which were from the late 1980s to early 2000s, included a double-breasted blackand-white Jean Paul Gaultier jacket lined in fabric featuring a male torso. The jacket was from the designer’s fall 1992 collection, which debuted before Halás was born.
Another piece plucked out of the trash bags: “the iconic Margiela tattoo top” from the spring 1994 collection, which Halás noted paid homage to an earlier piece introduced in 1989. “It’s sheer and tight and the tattoo print resonates with the audience,” he said. “They look so relevant to fashion now, which is why they retain their value.” Halás added that the top probably sold for “a few hundred dollars” when it debuted; The RealReal listed it at $7,000.
Born in Slovakia, Halás moved with his family to Montclair, New Jersey, in 1997, when he was 4. “We were working class and against spending money on nonnecessities,” he said, adding that his interest in fashion was in part stoked by a 2007 article on designer Helmut Lang in T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
As a student at Montclair High School, he started a fashion club and became more familiar with the vintage-fashion business from working at Speakeasy Vintage, a boutique in Montclair that is now closed.
After graduating from Brown University, Halás worked at showrooms including Goods and Services in New York, and then consulted for Helmut Lang before joining The RealReal.
Weeding out fakes
Watching Halás in action suggested that his job is not exactly a science. Determining the authenticity of certain garments — the Louis Vuitton sweater, say, or a light-blue nylon jacket with a Prada logo on it — can sometimes be more of an art.
“The quality of the material is throwing me off,” he said while handling the nylon jacket. “I feel authentic Prada readyto-wear every day, and the best way I can say it is this doesn’t feel expensive enough.”