Inside the Luxury Resale Minds of 4G

In many ways, 4G is a wild social experiment-turned-creative empire. On one hand, Ferraro and Singh have crafted an oasis for the coolest born-and-bred New Yorkers and A-listers alike to hang out and party till 5 AM. On the other hand, as many a hypebeast Reddit thread has argued, 4G’s upcharging of Chrome Hearts and other men’s luxury brand clothing is controversial and silly at best.

“A lot of people don’t agree with the 4G lifestyle, the brand,” Ferraro says. “But at the end of the day, we really don’t give a fuck.” There are other secondhand retailers out there where you can buy similar stuff for less, but for the 4G boys and their army of followers, it’s more about the feeling, the ritual — similar to the business of New York nightlife. “When you’re getting something dope from a dope source, it makes everything even sicker,” Ferraro says. “You have to pay to play.”

It’s safe to say that the 4G boys are wholly redefining the men’s resale market as we currently know it, so to scope out what’s really going on, PAPER sat down with Ferraro and Singh to discuss the hustle.

Are you both in New York?

Vincent: Yeah, I’m at the store right now.

Can you tell me how you guys first met?

Vincent: I met Dave about eight years ago. I was working in night clubs and shit, so I met Dave through a mutual friend and we’ve been friends ever since. That was eight or ten years ago?

Dave: Nah bro, it was like 15 years ago. Twelve years ago? We were on a photoshoot for a friend’s brand, actually. That’s how we met.

Are you guys originally from New York?

Vincent: Dave is from Queens, and I’m from the Bronx.

What have you guys been up to recently? Are the holidays a good selling time for 4G?

Vincent: Honestly, yeah the holidays have a little more influx in the amount of spend, but across the board I think our customers are throughout the year.

Dave: Yeah, they’re all through the year.

Vincent: They’re not really affected by the stock market going up or down, this or that, whatever. You know what I mean? They’re kind of just like a very small percentage of people, so they’re constantly in their own bubble of if they want clothes, they just buy them. They’re not really dependent on the time of year or the season.

What is a typical day like at 4G, and what are each of your roles?

Vincent: Honestly, some days we just get to work. We come here, we take a few pictures of clothes and post it to Instagram. I don’t even like doing it. We’re not big social media guys at all, but you have to do it because people are constantly on Instagram and see their phone and are like, "Oh, we wanna come by and buy stuff." Especially with this Chrome Hearts and ERD shit, it’s like, who needs to get it first? You put out the bait, and people are like, "Oh I need to buy that now, even if I don’t necessarily have the money or need it, I need to be the one to get this item."

With that being said, we get new items every day. People fly in with items, sell them to us, we cash them out, then we post it and see what happens. People will show up to the store. But all the messages we get, we don’t really... There are a lot of people that we don’t even let in. If someone refers someone good, we’ll let them in, but if it’s a random person that’s like, "Oh, I need this," we don’t really entertain that kind of shit.

Vincent, I know you came from the nightlife scene before starting 4G. How do you think that prepared you for what you’re doing now?

Vincent: Well, it’s all supply and demand. Everyone wants to get in where they can’t get in. What’s the hottest thing? We did try a pop up last year a few blocks away, and it was fine. We had customers, it was good. But the whole business model we have now wasn’t even planned to happen. Dave was doing more interior design stuff and I was like, bro, things are good, you need to stop doing that, let’s work together. I was like, "Bro, stop doing the interior design." Then we joined forces. I trust Dave, you know? He’s a big part of the brand.

But as far as the nightlife thing, I just think it’s way better to have real serious people in here. We don’t need 100 people coming in to try on clothes, talking about fashion and shit. We talk about this shit enough. You see what you’re getting, do you want it or not? That’s it. There’s nothing more that we need to be fucking around with. Do you want the clothes or not? It’s like when you’re doing the door. Are you gonna come in and spend money, or are you gonna be in here leeching off other people, wasting other people’s time?

On your Instagram page, I love the height differences of you with all the basketball players who are so tall. That image is just so cool to me.

Vincent: Yeah, and I’m like six feet tall. I’m not even that short of a person, but their heads are hitting the chandelier and shit.

Has there been a starstruck or surreal moment for y’all with someone who’s come into the store?

Vincent: Honestly, I’m not even like that. I more get off when they spend six digits swiping their card. That’s more exciting to me. Dave follows sports more than me, so he will be like blah blah blah and I don’t even know. Honestly, the store made me get into sports, not the other way around. Now it’s like, now I know them. Now I know Odell [Beckham Jr.], so now I see him on TV and I’ll follow football a little more. But Dave, what do you think? I don’t think anyone, really. I mean fuck, man. Drake?

Dave: I feel like we’ve been doing this for so long now that the first rappers we had, it was surreal. I think for us, it was less starstruck and more of the fact that these people are fucking with our shit. That was the cooler part about the whole thing. The fact that they know who we are and fuck with our shit, that’s more of a surreal moment. But some people just have that star power, so I would say Drake. He entered the building a lot different than everybody else that came in, and it was cool as fuck. He was a cool dude. But that’s probably it. The whole essence in 4G when you walk in, it’s like, you can just be who the fuck you are. You don’t have to be in celebrity mode. There are no cameras in your face and shit. That’s why people come and chill for hours in the place because, for us, it’s our home base. It’s like coming over and hanging around at our house.

Vincent: When we first started, it was interesting how we had 2500 followers, but Gunna found us. All these big, known celebrities are finding us with such a little amount [of followers]. The clothing was so important and rare that they were finding us with, like, 2000 followers and asking to come through. Then we were like, "This shit is kind of real." Like Dave said, we weren’t even impressed by the celebrity. We were impressed by, like, how the fuck are they finding us?

Vincent: Also, Mark Wahlberg was cool. That one was a good one.

Dave: Yeah, Mark Wahlberg.

Vincent: He took a private jet to here just to check out the store and see what it’s about. I thought that was pretty sick.

A private jet?

Dave: Yeah, he flew private just to come see us and then left. That was pretty cool.

That is the really interesting, big question. How are these huge A-Listers finding you guys? Is word of mouth really that strong?

Dave: I would say it’s definitely word of mouth. I mean, Vincent has sourced some of the craziest fashion pieces known. At least for us, it’s what we really like. We stick to what we really like, and then push it, and it circles the web. A lot of these guys have burner accounts that they look at all of our shit on, down to our personal pages. We’ve seen it. So they know what’s going on.

Vincent: They’re all lowkey in competition, too. Getting back to what I said before, they all wanna be the first to get the pair of jeans before their boy does. Because there are only so many of these, only so many sizes — XXL. So they really have to be on their shit. Now, it really is a thing that they do check in with 4G when they’re in town. They have to come here and get the green bag filled with some sick shit before they go to their next game or concert.

Yeah, when you have that much status and that much money, the real show of wealth is what you get first.

Vincent: Exactly. It’s like the new Ferrari truck. People are outspending each other to the point where the truck is already half a million, but now it's up to $800,000 because the demand is so crazy that everyone's like, who has enough money and power to get it first?

Aside from Chrome Hearts, who are some of your favorite designers? And who did you wear the most growing up?

Vincent: I think me and Dave definitely have a very similar way we used to dress. When we first met, it was the Saint Laurent leather skinny pants with the moto jackets. That was the Chrome Hearts of, like, what it is right now.

Dave: Yeah, that was cool, that era because it was non-branded and it was expensive as fuck at the time. You know, nobody was spending $2,500 on pants, but Hedi Slimane had that. I feel like it’s evolved from there and the prices just kept going higher. They just became more and more desirable, I feel.

Vincent: We moved out of the Saint Laurent Celine thing into ERD, which was like 2016/17 when it first started. We always just wore it. We were always buying this shit. There were super small quantities. They only sold it at Patron and a couple other places in the world. Then they opened a store in Paris and we started putting people onto it, like, "Bro, fuck with this ERD shit, it’s rare." And now ERD is neck-and-neck with Chrome Hearts as far as availability and price point. Overall, if you want the coolest shit, it’s Chrome and ERD. That’s really what it is.

Aside from fashion, what were you guys into growing up? What were your hobbies?

Vincent: I don’t know, going out? What do we like to do?

Dave: [Laughs] Vince is like, girls. I was into cars and sports, but mostly just cars. I was honestly just trying to make money at a young age. I was hustling. That was my hobby. I knew that if I wanted the hottest cars and the sickest clothes and shit, then I had to make money. So that was my thing.

I heard that Vincent was arrested one time related to 4G. How did that happen?

Dave: Basically, it was the last few days of Fashion Week and Offset came by. He was shooting a music video, and the streets were crazy. We had nothing planned, but we were like, "Should we do an event?" Then we were like, "Fuck that," everybody’s doing events, that’s just whack, we’re not doing that. We were just getting fucked up, and Vince was like, "I’m just gonna throw stuff off the balcony," because people were just watching Offset shoot a video. Now there’s a whole crowd formed outside.

Vincent: No one really knew where the store was until they picked their heads up and saw Offset outside.

Dave: Yeah. Only the people that really, really stalked this shit knew where the store was. But at that time, no one really knew where it was. It’s on the second floor, and we only have a balcony. At that point, Vince started throwing some of our stuff down and was like, "Fuck it, I’m gonna throw some Chrome jeans." So he threw a pair of $15,000 Chrome jeans off the balcony, and kids were fighting over it and shit. They arrested him for inciting a riot.

I saw that video. Would you say that was the craziest moment of this whole thing so far?

Dave: I don’t even think so. I actually forget that happened because there’s way crazier shit that happens.

Vincent: I mean, we do parties here every other night, I feel like, with celebrities, OG New Yorkers, fucking nobodies, it doesn’t even matter. Everyone’s just here meshing. If you’re here, it’s just a good vibe. Neighbors are always complaining about the music til five in the morning. It’s kind of a free-for-all, but it works out with the brand. It’s a very unconventional brand. We’ve never spent a dollar on marketing. These girls came up to us like, "Hey, let’s do this marketing for $10,000/month. We’ll do this, do that." And we thought about it but were like, "Fuck this shit." We don’t pay for ads on Instagram. We don’t pay for Grailed to do anything. It’s almost anti-marketing the way we think of it now. Like you said, the word of mouth is the only marketing, really.

It’s the strongest marketing, really.

If you were to explain to someone who doesn’t know much about this stuff, what makes Chrome Hearts so rare and desirable?

Vincent: Bro, if you go back in time, everyone wanted a diamond Rolex. That was your symbol [of status]. Even if you don’t like watches, you wore a watch and you didn’t even know the time. It was a diamond watch, and you just want that status. Right now, wearing jeans is a status symbol. The crazier the color combinations, the rarer the patch, where the patches are located. That’s what it is. I mean, Dave, there’s nothing more to it.

Dave: I like to compare it to the Birkin bag because that’s the most easily comparable. What makes a Birkin bag $250,000? It’s just super rare, nobody can get it. It’s not worth $250k, but I think the Chrome Hearts jeans are the new Birkin bag.

I’ve always been really obsessed with this stuff because it makes you question, like, "What is real?" Reality is kind of not real. It’s all an illusion at the end of the day.

Vincent: And the secondary resell thing, it’s crazy to get these Chrome Hearts jeans, and then if you’re like, "Yo, I got them at 4G," it’s another level of "fuck you" to the world. Because there are a bunch of other corny resellers now. There are corny people that do anything. But when you’re getting something dope from a dope source, it makes everything even sicker. You have to pay to play, and you know that if you’re coming out with a 4G bag, you’re spending a lot of money. You got some sick shit, it’s guaranteed. There’s nothing in this store that isn’t hand picked. A lot of these consignment and secondary stores will take on any dog shit they can take on just because they wanna make a dollar. We don’t do that. We’re only picking the things that me and Dave will wear. We could close our eyes, spin around and put an outfit on, and it’s gonna be dope no matter what. These other resellers couldn’t say that. They’re just a revolving door of trying to make a few bucks here, a few bucks there, take in things, sell things. They don’t really believe in the products and the lifestyle the way me and Dave do.

And I feel like no one is really buying clothes anymore except for vintage and secondhand. At what point did you notice this opening or this gap in the resale market?

Vincent: I’m not even gonna lie, I think me and Dave made it cool. It was never a cool thing. I’ve been selling shit on eBay since I was 16, and it was never like I was proud of it.

Dave: Chrome used to sit on the rack.

Vincent: That shit used to sit. Then me and Dave would get this shit in the store and wear it out to the club or wear it out to a party, and smoke cigarettes and do whatever. We’re not treating the clothes like, "Oh my God, this is so delicate, white glove treatment." Nothing gets a white glove treatment. We’re actually wearing the clothes and showing people that this is how you’re supposed to wear it. Don’t just treat it like it’s some delicate shit. That’s weird.

But like I said, it wasn’t cool up until a few years ago. Now everyone wants to resell clothes and think it’s sick because there’s money involved, but it was never the cool thing.

Dave: Yeah, reselling the clothes is like the worst part of it.

Vincent: We don’t really give a fuck anyway, so that’s why. A lot of people don’t agree with the 4G lifestyle, the brand. People will say we’re way overpriced and it’s not right. At the end of the day, we really don’t give a fuck, so people can think what they want. I think they really, truly know that me and Dave don’t give a fuck, so that’s all it comes down to. We know we do good shit, we have good shit, so we’re not really worried about what other people think.

Dave: It’s almost like, if you can find the piece that we’re selling for a little bit cheaper from some guy on Grailed, then go do that. But with us, it’s a trusted source, and also it’s a user experience. You come by, and you never know what we’ll have. We’ll go out and party that same night, go to dinners. There’s much more to it than the transaction of buying the clothes.

Vincent: Perfectly said.

What percentage of the customers would you say are celebrities, and then what percentage are just normal people off the street who are fans of 4G?

Dave: Like 90% celebrities, I think.

Vincent: Yeah, 90% celebrities and athletes. Then 10% is the .001% of wealthy people, just super wealthy I think.

Because I’m sure you guys have so many fans who love the brand but realistically don’t have the income to afford it, so how do you guys reckon with that?

Dave: We’re actually gonna work on that in 2025. We understand that people wanna support us who don’t have $1,000 to spend on a hoodie or whatever. So there are gonna be ways we can figure out for how we can get some sort of product to them that they can support without spending a crazy amount of money. But I don’t know. Vin, what do you think?

Vincent: Yeah, I haven’t really put much thought into it. It kind of is what it is. I don’t know. Lamborghini never made a product for ‘regular’ people to have, so I don’t feel like we need to. I don’t mean to be a dick, but it is what it is, bro. I couldn’t afford a lot of things in my life, but you gotta work for them. There are other brands that people can buy.

Why try and fix it when it’s not broke? I read in the New York Times article that you’re not really trying to make this a huge, multimillion dollar brand. Do you still agree with that statement?

Vincent: I think that was taken in the wrong context. I’m definitely trying to make a lot of money and expand.

What does 2025 look like for 4G?

Vincent: Definitely just keep moving the brand. We keep doing really small pop-ups. Me and Dave have to go to Miami tomorrow because we have three clients there. We have to drop off some clothes. But doing these super intimate pop-ups — well, we wouldn’t even call them pop-ups because they’re not open to the public — that are just for NBA players and their friends. We’ve just been doing that under the radar shit. Me, Dave and the 4G brand don’t, like, go to ComplexCon and do this. We’re not that kind of thing. It doesn’t align with our brand. We’re just gonna keep doing our own shit. Maybe we’ll do a few things out of the country.

Dave: Out of the country stuff is crazy because on our last trip to Japan, motherfuckers were recognizing us on the street who were just random people. We were like, holy shit, there’s something there, obviously. We never really experienced that out of the country. In the country, yes, people will recognize us and the brand. But to have that feeling out of the country is pretty surreal, honestly.

Well thank you both for talking to me.

Vincent: Thank you. Make us sound sick.

Photography: Ricardo Gomes (as featured in PAPER)