Christos Garkinos on The Items Everyone Should Have in Their Wardrobe

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Before Christos Garkinos became the world's leading livestreamer of all things luxury, he was working at his parents' Greek restaurant in Detroit, Michigan. "I grew up in the restaurant," Garkinos said. "I was four years old on a milk crate, working the register."

After graduating from business school, Garkinos worked corporate jobs at places like Clorox and Disney before landing a role under Richard Branson at Virgin Megastores that changed the course of his career. "That was when I was able to kind of express myself more from a fashion perspective," Garkinos said.

On the latest episode of The Who What Wear Podcast, Garkinos shares how that job at Virgin Megastores changed his life, the items everyone should have in their wardrobe, and more.

For excerpts from their conversation, scroll below.

Take me back to you growing up. What was your relationship to fashion growing up, and did you always know that this is what you wanted to pursue?

I'm a child of Greek immigrants. My parents immigrated in the mid 50s to Detroit. I grew up in the restaurant. I was four years old on a milk crate, working the register. My dad was called "Nick the Greek." He was impossibly good-looking. They would go out every Saturday night, because they were the party kids of Greektown in Detroit, and I'd watch my dad get dressed. He had no formal training. He wasn't even a high-school graduate, and he just knew how to put things together.

I would watch him put together outfits, like a mustard tuxedo jacket with the crazy shirt, his jewelry, his hair. The minute I realized I was going to be in fashion. It's a typical gay boy experience when I'm by myself, on the playground, playing tetherball, which, you know, is the lonely friend game. The ball was going around, I was nine years old, and I heard the clickity clack of a girl's heel, like a high school girl who's probably cutting class. I looked over and I heard those stilettos and I said to myself, "Someday, I'm going to be around that." I didn't know what it meant. Something like a thunderbolt hit me. Then a true thunderbolt did hit me, because the ball came around, smacked me in the eye, and I got a black eye from it.