Twenty years ago, shopping at a San Francisco secondhand store could feel like an archaeological dig, with shoppers sifting through racks, hoping to uncover a treasure.
But in 2006, Sui Generis Designer Consignment opened at Church and Market streets, bringing a boutique atmosphere and full-service styling to resale.
Latin for “of its own kind,” Sui Generis suited owners Miguel Lopez and Gabriel Yanez’s vision for a resale shop with a designer boutique’s attention to detail. Carefully merchandised clothing, fully styled mannequins, and fabulous conceptual window displays complemented the attentive service shoppers expect at iconic shops like Wilkes Bashford, MAC, and McMullen.
“By offering a meticulously curated selection under one roof, we saved our clients from the hunt, changing consignment from a bargain search into a full-service fashion experience,” says Lopez.
Two decades on, perpetual Best of the Bay-winning Sui Generis is celebrating the community that grew around that vision. Now at 2231 Market St., the shop is marking the milestone with two days of fashion, music, and memories.
The festivities begin Fri/16 with a 20th-anniversary gala at The Academy SF, hosted by Juanita MORE! with remarks from District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman. The evening features a DJ set by Rich King, a photography timeline gallery by Miguel Jimenez Flores, and an archival pop-up shop curated for the event.
The Friday pop-up draws on a collection the store acquired this fall: Enfants Riches Déprimés pieces, including leather jackets hand-painted by founder Henri Alexander Levy; rare Balenciaga coats and jackets from the [Spring 2020] collection under Demna; and vintage Jean Paul Gaultier and Yohji Yamamoto.
On Sat/17, the celebration moves to the shop for an all-day community celebration with anniversary discounts and music from the boutique’s past two decades, spun by King, Carrie Morrison, Stanley Frank, and Dark Entries’ own Josh Cheon. The day also features a live unveiling of painter Micah Perry’s custom interpretation of the Sui Generis logo, originally designed in 2006 by Oscar Ortega.
The anniversary also includes a short retrospective documentary, Sui Generis: 20 Years of Style in the Castro, directed by Luke Anthony, featuring a candid interview with the founders, hosted by longtime client and stylist James Krohn. The film will screen at the gala at The Academy SF and will subsequently be available on the store’s website. It revisits the founders’ early days and the shop’s thematic windows, from Pride to the Folsom Street Fair, while exploring the “second closet” philosophy at the heart of the business.
Lopez calls it the “circle of consignment”: a community that welcomes both the shopper buying their first designer piece and the longtime collector making space for the next one.
Lopez moved to San Francisco in 1999, the day after Gay Pride. Yanez followed in January 2000, after Lopez had secured a room to rent and his first job as a restaurant host. Both brought family histories rooted in Mexico’s garment trade.
Lopez’s grandmother sold clothing outside Los Angeles factories; Yanez’s family worked in Guadalajara’s historic flea-market clothing trade.
“It is entirely embedded in our DNA,” Yanez says. “We learned a relentless work ethic from our families—the driving force to keep a business operating rain or shine, beautifully. Being surrounded by clothing meant we were constantly learning about fabrics, patterns, and construction. That was our fashion school every single day.”
The pair ran up to three clothing stores in Guadalajara and even launched their own online clothing line, Irala Moda.
Lopez, the first in his family to graduate college, found his way into fashion retail after spotting a sign for a stockroom job in a Max Mara window. Within six months, he was assisting a stylist and went on to become one himself. After he helped Kim Babka, then Ralph Lauren’s West Coast director, she called him a week later to offer a sales position in the women’s department. From 2001 to 2009, he honed his customer service, management, and merchandising skills at Ralph Lauren in San Francisco.
Sui Generis looks beyond a single brand, mixing archival designer pieces with affordable contemporary labels.
Their approach rests on the belief that attentive service should be available at every price point. They describe their philosophy as “radical inclusivity,” with their doors open to everyone.
The owners say prices are often a third of those for comparable designer or collectible pieces. Lopez describes this “radical inclusivity” as high-end curation that meets people across identities, sizes, and budgets.
“We approach retail with open eyes and an open heart, ensuring we carry an incredibly diverse inventory so that whoever walks through our door can find something that speaks to their unique expression,” says Lopez.
Customers are encouraged to explore every department—men’s, women’s, or unisex—and choose what suits them.
Lopez and Yanez felt at home in the Castro on their first visit in 1997. That feeling remains.
“When we moved here with the dream of opening a boutique, this community embraced us wholeheartedly from day one,” Yanez says.
The neighborhood’s demographics have shifted—these days, they see more straight couples shopping with babies in tow—but the owners say its inclusive energy endures.
Sui Generis sees itself as a “second closet” for longtime customers. After a few outings, a piece bought for the Opera Ball, San Francisco Pride, or the Hunky Jesus & Foxy Mary Contest at Dolores Park might return to the shop for consignment.
“It is a living example of a circular fashion economy,” says Lopez. “Because our store carries items across every possible classification, your wardrobe can completely pivot with us. That dynamic rhythm really makes the shop the ultimate extension of your own closet.”
During those two decades, secondhand luxury has grown from a niche market into a major global business. Platforms such as TheRealReal, Vestiaire Collective, and Poshmark have changed how people buy designer fashion.
Lopez and Yanez say that growth has helped rather than hurt their business. Through Grailed, Depop, Poshmark, Vestiaire Collective, 1stDibs, and eBay, they now reach collectors worldwide.
At the shop, two decades of relationships bring in clients’ rarest archival pieces. They say the highly personalized attention they offer consignors—which they credit as “the lifeblood of our business”—has kept clients returning for 10, 15, even 20 years.
For Lopez and Yanez, authentication depends on more than data. After 20 years of handling garments, they rely on touch and smell, as well as close inspection: how vintage wool or silk feels, how patterns align across seams, the weight of hardware, how a zipper works, button stitching, and the fonts on interior care labels. These details, they say, are hard for counterfeiters to reproduce.
“An expensive piece just carries a high price tag, and a rare piece might just be hard to find,” Yanez says. “But a piece becomes genuinely important or collectible fashion when it holds a permanent place in cultural history.”
That research is its own archaeological dig: Who designed the piece, and when? Did it open or close a landmark runway show, sell out immediately, or appear on an iconic figure at a defining cultural moment?
“Collectible fashion tells a story about a specific moment in time,” says Lopez.
This fall, the store is expanding its digital offerings. Its redesigned website is live, letting shoppers filter more than 8,000 items by designer, size, color, and condition. The newly launched Designer Collector’s Guides explore labels, materials, hardware, construction, and the stories behind designer pieces, drawing on examples from the Sui Generis catalog and credited research.
The owners say a Sui Generis mobile app is in its final design stages and should be ready for the anniversary event. Planned features include instant alerts for heritage houses such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton, archival designers such as Yohji Yamamoto, and pieces from emerging talents. The store will announce the official launch date on Instagram.
With their earliest customers and consignors in mind, the owners are calling the anniversary “20 Years: A Friends and Family Fashion Affair.”
“It has been an incredible journey, alongside our clients,” Yanez says. “We are deeply in love with what we do and with our customers, which is why we still wake up excited to come to work every single morning.”
For the two tourists who fell in love with San Francisco nearly 30 years ago, the milestone also marks the life they built here after arriving with little English and starting from scratch.
They went from waiting tables and working in stockrooms to opening a storefront, growing to three locations at their peak, and consolidating into their current space through the pandemic. They describe it as “a beautiful, rocky ride.”
“We are two immigrants with a dream,” says Lopez. “We aren’t the first and certainly won’t be the last, but it is our story, and we hope it continues for many years to come.”
20 YEARS: A FRIENDS AND FAMILY FASHION AFFAIR Sat/17, Sui Generis Designer Consignment. Register here.
Note: Fri/16 event at The Academy SF is sold out.
