“I got hooked,” he says. “Then I just started sourcing heavier, traveling to stores, picking at abandoned houses.” Yes, abandoned houses. He confirms: “It’s definitely scary.” During the pandemic, Emelianov and his fiancée would take spontaneous road trips through small towns and snoop around. “Some of the places in the desert just had all these abandoned houses that were just filled with crap that people left behind—clothing is one of the things that people don’t really take with them,” he says. Sometimes they found full floors filled with ’70s-era T-shirts and whiskered, match-stricken Levi’s.

One time, he drove through Colorado and stopped by a “mom-and-pop antique mall” where he was approached by an older woman. “She was like, ‘I love your outfit. Do you buy vintage?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I do.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, my husband just passed away. He was a firefighter his whole life, and he has a ton of stuff in the attic I can’t really get to. Could you possibly help me?’” Emelianov recounts. “I’m like, ‘Holy shit, this is crazy.’ Yeah, I’m going to go. I don’t care if she’s going to kill me. I just need to see, you know?” Fortunately, his curiosity did not lead him to an untimely demise, but instead a trove of fire-torn workwear and decades-old denim and leatherwear, including an original Wrangler Blue Bell leather jacket from the 1950s.

Of course, figuring out the secondhand game led to many mistakes as well, given that, unlike Emelianov’s experience in music, there really isn’t much of a mentorship culture. “Vintage is like every man for themselves,” he says. “Everyone’s gatekeeping information or their spots. You really have to mess up a bunch to find your way.” This includes accidentally underselling high-value items (like the Sade shirt) or taking a gamble on a presumed gem that turned out to be rather regular. Today, he holds on to his stuff mostly for sentimental reasons, unless he really finds the client worth it.

“I think relationships are so important in this business, and I’m just not like a money-hungry dude,” he says. Though he had some covetable clients frequenting his archive, like Frank Ocean and Billie Eilish, Emelianov’s big pinch-me moment came when he was contacted by Kendrick Lamar’s team in 2024. Apparently, they originally met him at a Los Angeles flea market, but forgot to get Emelianov’s information and had been trying to get in touch with him since. “They finally found me again at the flea,” he says. “One of the assistants ran into me, and she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve been trying to get a hold of you. We would love to come pull for Kendrick.’” At the time, World Vintage was still operating out of Emelianov’s storage facility, which he raided for his “best stuff”—jerseys, hoodies, and jeans in every color and from every decade—setting up racks throughout the unit for their perusal.