He Helps the RealReal Keep It Real

The trash bags seemingly contained a treasure trove. Comme des Garçons, Maison Margiela, Helmut Lang and Jean Paul Gaultier were all names on the tags of the clothes stuffed inside.

The 10 black plastic bags had arrived in September at a 500,000-square-foot building in Perth Amboy, N.J., where the RealReal, the luxury resale marketplace, operates one of four authentication centers. They had been sent by a seller who said the clothes came from a vintage store that her aunt ran in Florida. After poring over the bags’ contents, about 100 garments in total, it was determined that the clothes were real — and that they could sell secondhand for as much as $100,000.

“These are some of the best Gaultier pieces we have ever come across,” said Dominik Halás, a master authenticator at the RealReal who specializes in vintage clothing, which the company defines as pieces that are at least 20 years old.

Mr. Halás, 29, is one of youngest people entrusted by the RealReal to authenticate garments, jewelry and other accessories. Previously a men’s wear merchandising manager and archival expert at the company, where he started working in 2017, he was asked to join the authentication team soon after it started reselling vintage clothing in 2019, the same year the RealReal became a publicly traded company. (Its stock debuted on Nasdaq at $20 a share; it currently trades for less than $2.)

“We needed the right experts,” said Rachel Vaisman, its vice president of merchandising operations. Although the RealReal has carried vintage handbags since it started in 2011, vintage clothing required “a specialized expert with the extensive knowledge and passion,” she added.

A Passion for (Vintage) Fashion

At the authentication center in Perth Amboy, clothing racks are arranged in rows that appear longer than city blocks. One Monday earlier this month, Mr. Halás was working his way through pieces from the shipment of 10 trash bags that had arrived weeks before. The clothes, most of which were from the late 1980s to early 2000s, included a double-breasted black-and-white Jean Paul Gaultier jacket lined in fabric featuring a male torso. The jacket was from the designer’s fall 1992 collection, which debuted before Mr. Halás was born.