Shop Vintage This Winter At This Brooklyn Warehouse

Featured Image: Customers sift through curated pieces from Lucky Fool Vintage and Armoury Shop. Photo by Isabella Appell.

As we head into a new season and those holiday wish lists start to grow, fast fashion sellers can feel like the easiest option. But instead of ordering from Amazon or Shein, consider shopping second-hand—perhaps from the third floor of a Brooklyn warehouse on 56 Bogart Street, that’s home to three queer-owned, women-run sellers.

Armoury Shop

Bridgett Magyar, the owner of Armoury Shop in Unit 328, officially started her business, reselling vintage pieces, in 2020. A lifelong collector of vintage garments, she was introduced to the world of antique selling by her mother. She began by upcycling vintage fabrics using plant-based dyes, then expanded into other materials, like cotton basics and linens. Eventually, she started experimenting with natural dyes made from avocado skins, onion skins, beets, and turmeric.

Although Magyar has always been a thrifty shopper, creating Armoury shop marked the first time she began buying items with the intention of selling and upcycling them. She started with vintage bikinis, building a career creating clothing for women sex workers and dancers, and has since gradually expanded into other types of vintage pieces.

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“I really think about vintage–whether it’s clothes, shoes, accessories–as things that can be restored and brought back to life,” Magyar told GO. “If it’s something that fits my curation and my style through my eyes, I will invest the time to repair things, to polish jewelry, and bring them back to their original form or better.”

In an effort to combat fast fashion, Magyar said that everything she sources is entirely her own—collected from private estates, estate sales, and rummage sales. Because these are pre-existing garments, they don’t contribute to textile waste, ultimately keeping them out of the trend cycle. “Just because somebody else discarded it doesn’t mean it’s the end of its life,” she said, adding that clothes last much longer than most people realize. Vintage pieces, she explained, are often crafted with intricate stitching meant to withstand the test of time.

In addition to her focus on sustainability, Magyar’s queerness is also inherently woven into her curation. She said she has always been drawn to colorful, expressive pieces—styles that often resonate with other queer people. Ensuring that her clothing is size-inclusive, ranging from XXS to 7X, is also a crucial part of her sourcing process.

“Helping people see themselves in clothing is a part of queer identity and self-expression,” Magyar said. “Queer people exist in all different bodies and sizes.” 

As a queer, curvy person, Magyar said there is little to no representation for people like her within the vintage community. Through her brand, she hopes to create space for others who share similar identities and experiences. There is often an ostracized rack of plus-size pieces that receives little love or care, but seeing people pay attention to them at her store and walk away with items they feel genuinely excited about has been deeply reassuring for Magyar. She believes that clothing carries layers of significance and memory for people, and that vintage, in particular, holds a unique kind of power.

“There’s a lot of nuance in occupying a queer body, and we really want to provide a space that people feel safe in,” Magyar said. “[My queerness] is so a part of every facet of my store and my business model; I can’t really separate the two.” 

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Sharing a small storefront in Brooklyn with Kay McMillen, the owner of Lucky Fool Vintage, Armoury Shop offers private appointments—something she values for the intimacy it creates between her and her clients. She encourages anyone in search of a holiday style bundle, particularly curvier women looking to curate a winter wardrobe, to reach out via Instagram or to stop by the store in person.

Lucky Fool Vintage

Kay McMillen, owner of Lucky Fool Vintage in Unit 328, began reselling about four years ago and met Magyar while selling on the street two years later. She said that working alongside other queer business owners within the vintage community is what makes her job so special. Their shared values, she added, create a sense of connection and purpose in their work.

“When you work with queer women who are all on the same page and focused on one goal, especially those who are aware of the importance of community building, there’s just so much more magic,” said McMillen.

Building on Magyar’s perspective, McMillen emphasized that a major part of their mission is not only to push vintage forward but also to advance sustainability. In line with this goal, Lucky Fool Vintage and Armoury Shop, in collaboration with Junkyard Thrift, hosted a sustainable Halloween event this year, aimed at encouraging customers to move away from fast fashion. “So much of the Halloween costumes we order year after year do not get reused,” McMillen said. They wanted to invite people into the studio, help them select vintage pieces—whether traditionally considered a costume or not—and transform them into outfits they could actually wear for upcoming events. 

In lieu of the winter season, they also hosted a cozy fall event to raise money for Trans Lifeline, a trans-led organization that connects trans people to the community, support, and resources they need to survive and thrive.

Vintage, in general, acts as a costume for people to express whatever they are feeling, regardless of whether a holiday calls for it, McMillen emphasized. She aims to give customers the freedom to try on as many pieces as possible, helping them discover what feels most like themselves.

“I want [my customers] to feel as though they can be the freakiest version of themselves,” McMillen said. “By that, I mean as confident and as honed into who they are as they can be. I want them to buy a piece from me because it feels like them, and when they wear it, they feel like themselves.”

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The clothes curated at Lucky Fool Vintage reflect McMillen’s childhood, a time when she could not fully express her queerness through her personal style. Certain silhouettes, such as ’90s blazers with pronounced shoulder pads, can be triggering for some, so she focuses on pieces with more ambiguous shapes as part of her approach to sustainable selling.

Fast fashion, particularly pieces geared toward women, often lacks diversity in shape and silhouette. By contrast, vintage allows for exploration of both masculinity and femininity in clothing. Broad shoulders, for example, can be styled in a way that feels feminine, demonstrating how she adapts vintage pieces to match each person’s comfort level.

“Silhouettes from different eras can be weirdly affirming for certain people,” McMillen said. “It’s important to me to be investigating how different ones make me and the people I’m styling feel good or bad, and just be mindful of what certain people are interpreting as femme or masculine.”

Junkyard Thrift 

Rae DeRosa, owner of Feywilds Vintage, discovered her love of vintage through her college roommate, who started a business out of her garage. Immersing herself in the world of antique shopping, De Rosa developed a distinctive approach to reselling, primarily focusing on vintage nightgowns and antique dresses. In an effort to sell her clothes both online and in-person, she now works through Junkyard Thrift, a storefront in Unit 323, down the hall from Armoury Shop and Lucky Fool Vintage. 

“Clothes have these little lives and I want to continue them past me,” DeRosa said.

Through collecting antique slips, originally worn as undergarments, DeRosa finds significance in styling them as outerwear today. What was once a style that invited shame becomes, in the present, an empowering fashion statement. Inspired by her girlfriend, who dresses more masculine, DeRosa enjoys experimenting with styling to ensure her partner feels confident, even if the look differs from what she might envision for herself. This experience has shown her the powerful role clothing can play in shaping personal identity.

Having moved to New York less than a year ago, DeRosa has been working to establish herself in the in-person vintage scene, recently meeting Olivia Larossa, the owner of Junkyard Thrift. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, DeRosa came out just two years ago, making the move to New York—and experiencing the openness of the local queer community—particularly rewarding.

Building on the idea that clothing can act as a costume in everyday life, DeRosa reflected that she hadn’t been able to read people’s identities through their clothes until moving to New York, where Southern norms like athleisure had previously dominated. For her, fashion in the city offers a way to define and present oneself. 

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DeRosa chose to sell through Junkyard Thrift because the storefront actively resists the gatekeeping that can sometimes pervade the vintage community. The vendors are approachable, both in their pricing and in their openness to connecting with other sellers—a culture she credits to the owner. Beyond the business side, she values the conversations that take place between sellers and customers, where each piece’s meaning and story can be shared.

“It’s such a special thing to know how many lives the item has had before you. It’s an all-consuming thing that I feel like we don’t put to clothes,” DeRosa said. “These are pieces that have lived and people have loved and [I’m] now getting to continue that.”

DeRosa recalls a meaningful interaction with a customer who purchased a homecoming dress from her, thanking her for finding a piece that not only fit but truly felt like her own. Moments like these are what continue to inspire and motivate her to keep selling, she said. 

DeRosa advises anyone entering the vintage business to connect with as many people as possible, treating every interaction as an opportunity for the future. Meeting queer business owners, in particular, has been a meaningful experience for her, regardless of whether she has purchased anything from them.

“Everyone finds their space, whatever your style is, as long as you’re doing it for good reason and you’re open to friends and new experiences,” DeRosa said. “Even if it’s just going to these markets that you’ve been nervous to go to, just spend a day, don’t even spend money, and live in the energy of it all.”

In addition to selling at Junkyard Thrift, Feywild’s Vintage will also be available to shop at the Grand Bazaar starting in December. Whether you are looking to gift a matching lace pajama set or find yourself a vintage sequin dress, DeRosa encourages anyone looking for the holidays to stop by.