Christos Garkinos discusses the essential items that everyone should include in their wardrobe.

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      Before Christos Garkinos became a prominent livestreamer of luxury goods, he was working at his family's Greek restaurant in Detroit, Michigan. "I grew up in the restaurant," Garkinos recalled. "At four years old, I was on a milk crate, managing the register."

      After completing business school, Garkinos held corporate positions at companies like Clorox and Disney before taking a transformative role under Richard Branson at Virgin Megastores. "That was when I could truly express myself from a fashion standpoint," Garkinos noted.

      In the latest episode of The Who What Wear Podcast, Garkinos discusses how his position at Virgin Megastores changed his life, the essential items everyone should have in their wardrobe, and more. For highlights from their conversation, scroll down.

      Reflecting on your upbringing, what was your connection to fashion as a child, and did you always envision pursuing this path?

      I am a child of Greek immigrants; my parents came to Detroit in the mid-50s. I spent my childhood in the restaurant. I was working the register at age four, standing on a milk crate. My father, known as "Nick the Greek," was strikingly handsome. They went out every Saturday night, being the social butterflies of Greektown in Detroit, and I watched my dad get dressed. He had no formal training and didn't even finish high school, yet he had a knack for putting outfits together.

      I saw him create looks, like pairing a mustard tuxedo jacket with a bold shirt, accessorized with jewelry and styled hair. That’s when I realized fashion was my future. It's a common experience for a young gay boy when I was alone on the playground, playing tetherball—the game of the solitary friend. One day, at nine years old, I heard the sound of a girl's high heels, likely a high school girl skipping class. I glanced over and thought, "One day, I'm going to be around that." I didn’t know what it meant, but it struck me like a bolt of lightning. Then another bolt hit—literally—when the tetherball smacked me in the eye, giving me a black eye.

      Life has its ups and downs, and you navigate it as best you can. That has been my experience throughout my life.

      You began your career in marketing at several major companies like Clorox and Disney. Can you describe that experience and how you transitioned to fashion?

      I attended business school in Michigan, then moved to San Francisco to work for Clorox. On my first day, I arrived in a seersucker suit with a yellow tie, thinking it was stylish. They sent me home and told me no. For the next two years, I wore a gray suit. After my two years there, I got into Harvard for business school.

      In 1990, someone at Disney reached out with a job offer instead of going to Harvard, and I accepted. I worked at Disney during its peak, from '90 to '95, and was sent to Europe to open Disney Stores. That lasted a few years, but my greatest passion, next to fashion, was music.

      I admired Richard Branson and loved Virgin Megastores, where I could spend hours. Once, during a terrible blind date in London, I visited the Virgin Megastore in Piccadilly and was browsing Billboard magazine—before the internet existed. I spotted a job ad there, found it again a month later, and started just two weeks later. It felt like fate. That job allowed me to express my fashion sense more freely.

      It was a fantastic period until it wasn’t. In 1999, I appeared on Fox News, and when asked about Napster's impact on the music industry, I said, "No, everyone will want CDs. What's digital music?" Fast forward a year, and I was unemployed, marking my shift into fashion.

      I always dreamed of opening a store and eventually started one in L.A. That's when I discovered my love for resale. I found the concept of resale in fashion intriguing and meaningful. This was 30 years ago, around the time when *Sex and the City* launched in the late '90s, and people were just beginning to understand luxury handbags. The internet didn’t exist yet. I began working with some of the best closets globally, and gradually became an expert in fashion and the resale market, which is now a booming sector.

      Let’s discuss products. What items have consistently been in demand?

      Every girl—and now I say boy—needs a fantastic clutch. A Chanel clutch, for instance, can be resold multiple times.