History in the Making

St. Paul’s Go Vintage outfits actors from Boardwalk Empire, The Great Gatsby and beyond

Go Vintage, a vintage boutique at the intersection of Snelling and Selby avenues in St. Paul, provided a host of items to HBO for their series "Boardwalk Empire."

Image credit: Macall B. Polay/HBO

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By: Mary O'Regan |   February 2012   |  From the print edition

Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, the infamous Italian gangster from the 1920s, lights a cigarette and takes a seat at an elegant dinner table set with fine china. He’s wearing a gold ring on his pinky finger, a grey herringbone vest and a blue striped shirt with a high collar-band. It’s the best attire money can buy, only Luciano didn’t get it from a bespoke tailor 90 years ago—the shirt in particular hails from Go Vintage, a vintage boutique at the intersection of Snelling and Selby avenues in St. Paul.

Luciano is actually actor Vincent Piazza and the aforementioned dinner table is on a set in New York where HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, a drama about prohibition-era Atlantic City, is filmed. Kevin Looney, owner of Go Vintage, first met the show’s costume designer, John Dunn, in April 2009 at a vintage trade show where Dunn and his associate designer were discussing scenes and shopping for 1920s attire for Boardwalk Empire’s pilot episode.

“They bought some dresses, and I just started sending them stuff,” Looney remembers. “When the first season aired, I spotted tons of my pieces.”

Paz de la Huerta, who plays Lucy Danziger (girlfriend of Steve Buscemi’s Enoch “Nucky” Johnson), wore an antique embroidered peach robe from Go Vintage in the premiere episode. Looney also sold the show 150 collars, 100 ties, 40 collar-band shirts, beaded gowns, children’s suits and oodles of men’s and women’s hats.

“We believe in using as much real clothing from the era as possible. It helps engage the audience in the story we’re telling,” Dunn says. “[Looney] impressed me with the great condition of his clothing, which makes it possible for us to use it in the show without worrying that it’ll fall apart on camera.”

Boardwalk Empire isn’t the only popular show snatching up Looney’s collection. A costume designer from Baz Luhrman’s forthcoming film The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, stopped by Looney’s booth at a trade show in New York last April and bought 1920s dresses and children’s attire. Last February at a Santa Monica show, Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks fell in love with a silk embroidered Asian-style jacket from the late ’40s.

Eschewing the fitting room, she whipped off her top in the middle of the booth and put the jacket on over her bra. Sold. Looney says he once unloaded a ’30s-era flannel Abercrombie & Fitch shirt to buyers from the company itself; they wanted the piece for their archives and talked about creating an updated version. Go Vintage’s Facebook page contains photos of Looney and his wife, Jerusa Carswell, with stylist Rachel Zoe, fashion designer Betsey Johnson and actor Orlando Bloom, who lives in the same building where Looney stays during his New York visits.

Many of Looney’s pieces have appeared or will appear onscreen in some capacity, whether on an extra or a major star. He says he mostly sells to Hollywood rental companies who then lend the clothes to costume departments, so it’s often a mystery where the clothes will end up.

“I’ve sold so many pieces to the big costume houses in L.A., and they rent to everyone,” he says. “It’s been the bread and butter of the business. I sell more to one costume designer in an hour than I do in six months in the store.”

Looney started collecting vintage in the early ’80s, back when it was easy to walk into Ragstock and leave with bags full of incredible finds. He attended his first expo in 2005 and opened Go Vintage a year later. Though he’s reluctant to share his vintage-hunting secrets, he says he scours the Internet for deals and will often drive 10 or 12 hours to hit up an auction or estate sale.

“It’s getting so hard to find vintage clothes now, especially men’s vintage. Guys didn’t have as many clothes back then, and what they did have, they wore out,” Looney says. “It’s also tough to find things that fit people nowadays. It’s been nice selling to actors because they’re pretty small.”