In their new boutique in Hell’s Kitchen, two vintage clothing connoisseurs pay homage to the stores where they shopped as children.
For Peter Mauceri and Joshua Martinez, Hommage (306 W38th St bw 8/9th Ave) is a representation of their lives and personalities through fashion, nestled in the heart of the Garment District. “If Peter and I shared a mansion and could just dream up a closet, this would be it,” said Josh.
It’s their second vintage clothing store in the neighborhood. Building on their success at Vintage on 46, which opened in the Paramount Hotel two years ago, the duo decided to offer a more upscale, carefully curated selection of clothing.
The garments are from the 80s and 90s. They are color coordinated and many come from the couple’s personal collections. The same goes for the selection of baseball caps.
There are racks dedicated exclusively to T-shirts from bands and musicians, as well as comics, TV shows and films. The shirts are worn and have different sizes depending on the era. “The stuff from the 80s was a bit tighter, and from the mid-90s everything became baggy,” explains Peter.
Above the shelves hang nostalgic objects from New York’s history and beyond – like a box from the legendary art supply store Pearl Paint (which closed in 2014) and a signed portrait of Keith Haring.
The best part is “seeing how excited someone gets when a piece of clothing fills them with nostalgia,” Peter said. “People tell stories like, ‘Oh, my brother had that jacket when he was growing up.’ Or, ‘I went to that concert, I remember that.’ I think the best part of what we do is seeing people freak out and get as into it as we do about these things.”
Peter and Josh have been collecting vintage clothing for a decade and decided to turn their passion into a career during the pandemic.
For Josh, it all started when he went to flea markets as a kid. “I love nothing more than going to a random thrift store and finding something really cool,” he said. Later, he recalled, after buying a Kurt Cobain T-shirt at Target, he fell down a “rabbit hole of comic book shirts and music shirts and just started buying, collecting, buying, selling… It evolved into where we are now.”
“This is a one-year plan that I didn’t really plan,” he joked.
At Vintage on 46 (235 W46th St bw 7/8th Ave), the pair offer a larger selection, more like a thrift store, but Homage is very carefully curated. It’s a tribute to “all the vintage stores we used to love going to,” Josh said. “Without all those stores, this store wouldn’t exist.”
“We are collectors before we are sellers,” said Peter. “Everything here is hand-picked, piece by piece.”
