When Chris Gibbs, owner of LA boutique Union, debuted his Air Jordan collab in 2018, he set up a booth at the Rose Bowl flea market and got to selling. “It was fun as hell,” he says. “I had friends telling me they saw someone selling vintage Union Jordans that were fake, and I told them, ‘No, it’s real.’ ” Launched in 1968, The Bowl goes down in a parking lot outside the Pasadena stadium, with 20,000 shoppers showing up as early as 5 a.m. (complete with headlamps) to get first dibs on the 2,500 vendors. You can find anything, but it’s earned a global rep for street- and sportswear from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s—and for its lively scene.
What’s your approach to tackling Rose Bowl?
I'm the kind of guy that will get there at 10 a.m.—not 5 a.m.. I’m not the guy with the headlight on before it's even light out. Those guys get the best sh*t by default. I’m more casual, and I’ll spend the whole day there, til 3 or 4 p.m. And I want to see it all, not spend the six hours in one or two booths. I’m not the guy who’s going to the booths with piles of clothes. I want something a bit more considered—but I also don’t want it to be so considered that it’s $1,000 t-shirts. I’m a middle class kind of guy.
What do you bring with you when you hit the flea?
I have an uncanny ability to, when I’m at the fleas, have a big breakfast and then skip lunch. So food-wise, I don’t need much but water. I love a big bag. I have these huge duffel bags that I bring—old military bags, this old Kapital bag, the biggest one they made. We made ones at Union for gifting that I’ll use. It’s not uncommon to see me with both of them filled up, and I’m carrying them. I have no problem walking around with them. I’ll often go by myself, and sometimes I’ll go with my wife, and now I’ll go with my head designer sometimes. I’m very independent, and if I’m looking for something specific, I don’t want someone to slow me down.
Do you have vendors you always go to, or that you’re in contact with outside of the Bowl?
I’m still in the lower class of this. Higher-class motherf*ckers don’t even go—they’ve graduated past the Rose Bowl. They have private clients, and they don’t need to do it anymore. I have a few [vendors] like that, like Jenny [Tsuajaks] from Please And Thank You, but I like the hunt.
How do you approach price and negotiating?
I’m probably the world’s worst haggler. I shouldn’t say that out loud. The way to get me is, if I can get multiple uses of it—meaning we can take something from it in terms of design, but it also happens to fit me—well, I might spend a little more. So there’s an inappropriate amount of XL vintage in [the Union] collection. I’ll place a value on something and I’ll try to haggle, but I don’t do it for sport. If I think it’s worth $30 and they ask for $30, I’ll pay it—I won’t be like, “Can I get it for $20?”
How does vintage help inform your work at Union?
So we have this pant we run regularly that’s based off this vintage… I’ll call it an Eastern European workwear pant. It had a half-fixed waist, half-not. If I had to guess, it’s from, like, the sanitation department in Romania, or something. I hadn’t ever seen anything like it before. So we madea kind of fixed-waist Dickies that, to me, didn’t exist. There was weird sh*t and little details from the thigh, up—but from the thigh, down, it looked like a pair of Dickies. I thought, “Oh, okay, we can now make this quintessential American pant, but through a new lens.” And now it’s one of our favorite pants to make.
Any favorite things you’ve come across in your shopping?
This may be a surprise, but I’m not a huge vintage T-shirt guy. I like more militaria, workwear, some interesting sweaters. But I have a vintage Def Jam T-shirt that I got from Patrick [Matamoros] of Saint Luis, who’s this very infamous vintage T-shirt guy. Five years ago, when your favorite rapper, or Rihanna, or A$AP, were wearing a vintage tee, they got them from Patrick. It has that perfect boxy fit, the patina is great. It says DEF JAM 87 on the front, and on the back it says BIGGER and DEFFER, which was the name of the LL Cool J tour from ’87. I think Patrick [just] gave it to me, because I’m spoiled—but if it were $400, I think I’d pay it. But don’t have kids, because they find some of this sh*t and abuse it. I also don’t want them to think it’s so precious that I’d stop them from wearing it. But now it’s really patinated.
What’s your best thrifting story?
Around five years ago Jerry Lorenzo asked me what I was up to, and I told him I was going to Japan the next week to go thrifting. He told me he’d never been to Japan and I invited him to come—like, it would be my honor to take you. I was like, Come on. Do it. Long story short, he calls me that night and is like, “I’m rolling.” We went on this trip and did a ton of thrifting, and what I realized is that I don’t want to go thrifting with Jerry any more. He’s so damn good at it. I’m like, “Here are my spots”—and they’re his spots now! The owners of the place know him now, even though I brought him. He took them all from me. I’d go into a spot, do my rounds, maybe find something, maybe not, and he’d go in right after with four of the dopest things that I missed. He’s a very good thrifter.
