Style

The RL Q&A: Sean Crowley

Sean Crowley’s charming shop in Brooklyn is a curation of vintage menswear, and it’s become the rage among those who love Anglo-American menswear from the golden age
September 2024
RL/STYLE
The RL Q&A:

Sean Crowley

Sean Crowley’s charming shop in Brooklyn is a curation of vintage menswear, and it’s become the rage among those who love Anglo-American menswear from the golden age
—Andrew Craig

Crowley Vintage doesn’t feel like a vintage store so much as it does the overflowing living room of someone with impeccable taste (and a maximalist eye for decorating), where the closet just so happens to have spilled out onto every available surface.

You’ll find a cascade of silk and wool neckties splayed around vintage accent tables and stacks of shawl cardigans and letterman sweaters. Rack after rack of hand-tailored two-pieces from bygone generations of Savile Row. English academic scarves, striped rowing blazers, country raincoats, well-loved leather luggage, and tweed of every type. It all, miraculously, fits into a small storefront in Brooklyn, just under the Manhattan Bridge, where Sean Crowley has turned his penchant for collecting and uncompromising eye for vintage English and American clothing into a cozy and immersive vintage store that’s overwhelming in the best way possible.

Crowley Vintage is the kind of “if you know, you know” place where the exceptionally stylish men and women of New York, from the famous to the every-day, shop for traditional menswear from a different era. This includes, of course, some vintage Ralph Lauren, where Sean got his start as a menswear designer before setting up his shop. Here, he walks us through his journey, from browsing Boston flea markets as a young man to becoming one of New York’s most impressive vintage proprietors.

First things first: Can you tell me a little about yourself and how you got into vintage clothing?

I grew up in a family of collectors and artists, so it was in my blood. I also had ADHD, which I found really fired my searching-and-seeking instincts. And when I got to school as a young kid, I just all of a sudden kind of zeroed in on menswear and became completely obsessed with it. Specifically, British menswear from roughly the ’20s to the ’40s.

Around that time, I met a collector of vintage menswear, Bobby Gardez, aka Bobby from Boston. He had a shop there, and I grew up in Massachusetts, and we met one day by happenstance at a flea market. We got to talking, and that turned into me going to work for him. This guy was an absolute legend in the vintage world and meeting him was just pure serendipity. It’s like if you were a kid getting into jazz and your next-door neighbor is Miles Davis.

Working there was the beginning of my menswear education and also my introduction to Ralph Lauren. Designers from all kinds of brands would come into store, but I quickly learned that the Ralph people were the coolest ones. By far. It really struck me how they not only knew everything there is to know about the garments—the designs, the history, the details—but how they were so passionate about it all. It’s not just a job. And they were all so stylish, too. They really lived it.

What is it about ’20s–’40s British menswear that attracted you?

I grew up with my grandparents living right next door to us. My grandfather was a designer and always impeccably dressed. A very stylish man and a complete Anglophile. I would go next door to watch British period TV with my grandfather, like Jeeves and Wooster. It was about a wealthy Englishman in the 1920s and his valet, and it was fun, but also it just looked incredible. The costumes, the interiors, everything was just perfection. For an awkward teenage boy, seeing this world of this guy who’s kind of hapless and twitty, but he’s dressed incredibly well, and is likable and carefree, I thought, “Oh my god, I want to be this guy.”

So that specific period and aesthetic crystalized for me. But even without that show, I think that menswear of the 1930s is just the sweetest of sweet spots in terms of color, proportions, textures, everything. It’s so flattering. So elegant. I know that the word “timeless” is overused, but it really is just a timeless, enduring style. And it’s very, very Ralph.

For me, it always comes down to a confluence of three things: style, quality, and condition.

You’ve since become an expert, but I imagine that didn’t happen overnight. How did you develop that curiosity about style?

This was a time before internet blogs and Instagram accounts and everything that people have at their command now, so I really had to just figure it out on my own. What do you call this kind of coat? What sort of vest is that? What are those shoes called? I didn’t know any of that—but it was a situation of, “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” Fortunately, I had the most incredible mentors along the way. Which included Ralph himself.

Well, you can’t ask for a better teacher than that. How did you meet Ralph?

I moved to New York to work at the mansion on Madison Avenue, and one day—again, serendipity—I switched shifts with a friend of mine. It was early on a quiet weekday, and Ralph just strolled into the store by himself to browse around. I think he liked my style, and so we just started chatting. He asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I told him honestly that I’d love to work in men’s design one day. He said, “All right. Let’s talk about that.”

Wow. So you got a job designing for Polo. I’ve heard you started off designing neckwear, just like Ralph did, right?

I started out in neckwear then transitioned to tailored clothing and haberdashery concept design. Working there really fostered my senses of knowledge and passion and taste. Everyone was just totally on board with the look and the culture behind the clothes. All told, I was there for 11 years before I bowed out.

And that’s when things came full circle to the vintage game, right?

Right. I had started selling things here and there on Instagram as Crowley Vintage. (Obviously, I didn’t hire a branding firm to come up with the name.) But I was just kind of fooling around—no storefront, no website, very low-fi. Eventually, I saved up money and opened my first storefront, which was just a super small broom closet kind of setup in Brooklyn. Eventually, I was just bursting at the seams of the space, so I moved to a bigger one (where I am now), but I’m actually—knock on wood—getting ready to move again.

What’s in the shop? What do you like to collect, to sell, to find inspiration from?

Honestly, my lazy elevator pitch is basically, “It’s kind of like Ralph Lauren.” I’m not saying it is Ralph Lauren, of course, but the inspiration is there. And part of that means I stock all kinds of things: workwear, military, Westernwear, British country clothing, tweeds, equestrianwear, Savile Row tailoring. It’s all the things that I like, that I enjoy, that say something to me. I curate every single piece for the shop, so everything has to pass my weird, obsessive test.

Tell me more about that. How do you decide what to stock?

For me, it always comes down to a confluence of three things: style, quality, and condition. There are obviously vintage items out there that everyone knows and loves, some of the big historic names that are known for making great clothes—oxford shirts from this brand, denim jeans from that brand. But I really love finding things that are not on the approved list, so to speak, of vintage menswear. Surprises from some old, small menswear shop that no one’s ever heard of.

I try to rely much more on quality and taste than brand recognition and hype. I don’t claim to have invented the style that I curate; it’s an established formula, this kind of Anglo-American traditional look. But I get excited about the little things that are a little surprising, even if it’s within a very defined aesthetic parameter.

This might be a hard question to answer, knowing what your shop looks like, but can you think of any particular favorite piece that’s come through your doors?

You know, that’s a question I always choke on. I’m too much of a magpie, and there have just been too many spectacular pieces that have come into the shop. It’s impossible. I have a constant influx and outflow of things, of course, but I’d guess in my complete inventory right now, I have at least 50,000 items.

What do you like to wear yourself, as someone who is constantly surrounded by clothes? How would you define your own personal style?

I’m very Ralph-pilled, so of course my style is heavily influenced by that. But something I always loved about Ralph, the man that he is, is how his style changed by the day. One day, he’s in immaculate tailored clothing: a flawless double-breasted grey flannel suit with perfect oxfords and everything is just so. Then tomorrow, he’s wearing cowboy boots and jeans and an old chambray shirt. Then the day after, he’s wearing both of those two previous days, mixed together.

My wardrobe is mostly either vintage or Ralph, with maybe a little sprinkling of some other things. But I think what I’ve really taken from Ralph Lauren, beyond just the garments, is this idea of creating a story with your clothing. That sounds a little pretentious maybe, but it’s true. You can create a kind of fantasy.

Not in a theatrical way, where it’s like you’re wearing a costume. You can pick out just a chambray shirt and a pair of chinos. But you might ask yourself, “Which chinos am I going to do? The more preppy, Ivy League pair? Or the more rugged, military ones? Which chambray shirt do I pick based on that? What belt does this kind of guy wear?” And so on. I always liked that idea, of creating these little characters, even if the nuances are imperceptible to anyone other than you. That’s something I always found so satisfying about a Ralph Lauren look.

Do you have any tips for the amateur vintage shopper who’s trying to find their own style, like you did?

It’s so tough right now, because I think it’s hard for guys to truly have their own journey. I hate to sound like an old man, but the internet has kind of ruined the way I got into menswear, which was a choose-your-own-adventure journey of discovery. I saw things I liked, I talked to people, I scoured books, and I learned through doing. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Today, it can be so much about labels and brands and just constant noise. So, I would say, if you can, try to put blinders on and really listen to yourself. Pick things that truly excite you in some way, not things where you’re just checking a box for something you think you “should” own. Don’t think about the brand, or the trend, or the “core” it fits into. Just find things that speak to you—really ask yourself, “Why do I like this?” And then go from there. There’s a lot of really good stuff out there that’s not in any style guide or shopping list. And finding it is part of the fun.