Street Style Outside a Lower East Side Closet Sale (1-28-23)

Two buddies sling high-end fashion garments at Leisure Center on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Giving Substack a shot for the things I want to shoot and discuss that don’t have viable partners. I’m not sure what I’ll do with this, or how frequently I’ll post, but for now, it’s free, and hopefully it’ll shed light on some stylish people you didn’t know existed. At the very least, I’ll post some street style from events that typically wouldn’t have any.

I miss menswear-era street style, and I miss street style with clear perspective. There are very few photographers still doing it well—Tommy Ton, Marc Richardson and Jamie Ferguson come to mind. I never wanted to stop, and I feel lucky to be at a place in my freelance career that I can spare some time to photograph things for fun again.

This past Saturday, two friends of mine (one of which has been a subject of my Five Fits column), Samer Saliba and Sameer Sadhu, put on a closet sale hosted at Leisure Center in the Lower East Side. Samer aimed to sell over 50 pieces he amassed over a decade of shopping in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, with brands ranging from Visvim to Massimo Alba, some of which were purchased from defunct stores like Hickorees and Carson Street. Sameer attempted to sell bits of fashion history from the 2010’s in early Bode pieces, Bottega Veneta pieces by Daniel Lee, some Lanvin, some Yohji… the list goes on.

More importantly, it was a celebration of the friendships made through a shared love of clothing and expressing oneself through one’s personal style. “We’re expecting old friends and new friends,” said Sadhu. “Hopefully this is an opportunity for some younger guys to get their first piece from a brand they love, or fall in love with a new brand, for some women to get into menswear, and for some people from the industry to remember past collections and look backwards instead of forwards for a change.” A portion of their sales went to charity, a subject particularly close to home for Samer, and there’s more on that below in our quick conversation.

How were you able to use Leisure Center as a venue for this closet sale?

Sameer Sadhu: I first came across Leisure Centre from Omer [Raviv] at Bode about 2 years ago when I moved to New York to be with my wife. He told me about this whimsical store that sold an incredible creation of goods from all over the world. Through visits over the years, we met Frank, who runs Lesiure Centre. Our friends Jacob Gallagher and Alex Delany had sold similar things in the past, and Samer and I also thought about doing this. We also know we are just two normal people and having Frank allow us is truly a privilege — and ironic considering Samer and I accidentally met on this street.

Samer, you said this is a “community” thing, can you elaborate on what you mean? 

Samer Saliba: Sameer and I met through our shared love of clothing, but we’re friends because we share a lot more in common than just that. Clothing is just the connector. While we met shopping on Hester Street, we quickly learned that we share a love for good food, immigrant cultures, and FIFA; clothing is now only a small part of our bigger friendship.

Retail in New York is a community space. I’ve made lifelong friends in this space and we hope that by bringing good clothes and good people together we can see some new friendships like the one Sameer and I share, especially for these younger dudes who are new to the city and shopping way too much through Instagram. 

I see you guys are giving some of the money to nonprofits. Why? 

Samer: A portion of our sales will go to Men of Hope, a refugee-led organization in Kampala, Uganda that provides community to displaced men who have experienced sexual violence but don’t have the space to share their trauma and heal together. The money will help them with the legal fees to formally register as a non-profit and fundraise from there. 

As kids of immigrants, we know what these immigrants and refugees go through and the support they need. But we also know that they just want to be a part of a community; to have a space where they can be themselves and take a break from their past experiences. That’s what we’re creating with this sale, and we liked the idea of helping create a similar community on the other side of the world. 

I’m working with a friend named Hervé, a Congolese refugee living in Kampala who started Men of Hope, to make this happen. 

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