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.
Mr. 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, Mr. 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 Mr. Bihlmaier, will host the sale on his vintage and antiques website, Collectors Gene. It will include workwear, denim, boots, belts, jewelry and hats.
Over the years, the soft-spoken and self-effacing Mr. 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 Mr. Bihlmaier has scaled back his duties at Ralph Lauren (he now consults) and lives a beach bum’s life in East Hampton, N.Y., 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, Mr. 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,” Mr. 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 Mr. Bihlmaier bought on Portobello Road in London. The collar was about to fall off and the lining was a wreck. Yet Mr. 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.”
In the sale, that jacket will be listed at $1,200. Other offerings won’t be cheap. They include 1980s-vintage tweed jackets bought at the London store Hackett ($1,250 and up), work shirts from the 1920s and ’30s ($550 and up), and a Double RL sweater from the early ’90s ($1,850).
Although Mr. Steiner has assured him otherwise, Mr. 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.”
Steven Kurutz covers cultural trends, social media and the world of design for The Times.
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