The interior of Doug Bihlmaier’s home in New York. The man spent four decades travelling the world as a buyer of vintage clothes for Ralph Lauren and is parting with rare jackets, boots, belts and workwear items. Photo: The New York Times
Selling off someone’s personal closet with fanfare is usually reserved for celebrities and royalty. To aficionados of men’s fashion, Doug Bihlmaier is both.
Starting Dec 13, more than 100 items from his collection will go up for grabs.
Bihlmaier, 72, spent four decades traveling the world as a buyer of vintage clothes for Ralph Lauren, and many regard him as the spirit behind Double RL, the spinoff brand whose Americana aesthetic has shaped trends.
After years in the corporate shadows, Bihlmaier has emerged as a style icon, praised by young social media creators for his unerring eye and his ability to mix styles and periods – say, a tweed sport jacket with baggy, patched chinos.
Cameron Steiner, a 32-year-old collector and friend of Bihlmaier’s, will host the sale on his vintage and antiques website, Collectors Gene.
Doug Bihlmaier remains skeptical that anyone would want to buy his “old” clothes. Photo: The New York TimesIt will include workwear, denim, boots, belts, jewellery and hats.
Read more: This menswear savant gets paid to travel the world and buy cool vintage pieces
Over the years, the soft-spoken and self-effacing Bihlmaier bought thousands of garments and accessories for his employer. He also collected for himself – rare workwear, lived-in flannels, military gear, filling his closets and some 40 plastic tubs.
Since Bihlmaier has scaled back his duties at Ralph Lauren (he now consults) and lives a beach bum’s life in East Hampton, New York, he doesn’t need such an extensive wardrobe.
“I talked to a few close friends and said, ‘Man, I should sell some of this stuff’ – because of my ill-earned popularity on style websites,” he said.
To prepare for the sale, Bihlmaier went through his closets and pulled some of his rarest pieces. Many of the garments are oversized, reflecting his build and preference for baggy clothes, thus making them rarer still in the vintage market.
“Some people are born with a great eye,” Steiner said.
“I think the Italians call it 'sprezzatura', this effortless cool chic. To me, that’s what Doug is. It’s the American workwear version of 'sprezzatura'.”
Take a vintage corduroy hunting jacket that Bihlmaier bought on Portobello Road in London. The collar was about to fall off and the lining was a wreck. Yet Bihlmaier saw something in it.
“One of my friends put it back together, and every time I wore it to work, everyone said, ‘That’s a great coat,’” he recalled. “It was so faded and so soft.”
Read more: 'Just regular people': Vintage fashion no longer caters to a niche market
In the sale, that jacket will be listed at US$1,200 (approximately RM4,930).
Other offerings won’t be cheap. They include 1980s-vintage tweed jackets bought at the London store Hackett at US$1,250 (RM5,135) and up, work shirts from the 1920s and 30s at US$550 (RM2,260) and up, and a Double RL sweater from the early 90s at US$1,850 (RM7,600).
Although Steiner has assured him otherwise, Bihlmaier is not convinced that people will pay four figures for his thirdhand duds.
“Hopefully, it works,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, it’ll go back in my closet.” – ©2025 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
