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Google PlayNostalgia is a powerful thing. And it can be triggered in a variety of ways. For a lot of people, clothing is the trigger. A promotional cap for Loews Theaters can elicit memories of their first trip to the theater. A T-shirt with the Napster logo on the chest can take one back to their time as a teenager burning CDs in the late ‘90s. Someone may spot their favorite sports team’s logo on a T-shirt that just so happens to be the same one a family member wore around them growing up.
Nostalgia is why Bijan Shahvali, the owner of New York’s Intramural Shop, loves vintage clothing. Shahvali has doubled down on his passion in recent years. What began as an Instagram page where he would display some of his favorite finds has grown into a brick-and-mortar space in New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood, Leisure Centre, which is shared with close friend and fellow vintage seller Frank Carson. Shahvali’s catalog mainly consists of graphic T-shirts, hoodies, and other trinkets that nod to pop culture moments throughout history. Sometimes it’s a retro poster of Jerry Seinfeld encouraging you to floss. Other times it’s a Whole Foods T-shirt covered in sea creatures. There’s no limit to what you may see pop up next on Intramural’s feed, as long as it channels a feeling or can provide some sort of history lesson.
“I think at the root of it, uncovering gems has always been fun and that’s very inherent in vintage,” Shahvali tells Complex over Zoom. “It’s fun to do storytelling through vintage, finding the throughlines or connections between eras, or designers, or artists throughout time is always fun to me.”
This niche is what connected him with popular film distribution company A24. More specifically, a paperweight. Shahvali says A24’s creative director Zoe Beyer reached out to him after coming across a vintage HBO paperweight he posted back in November 2020. The relationship has been fruitful since. The company has released three curated capsules with Shahvali over the past three months, the final being a 40-piece assortment that hit its web store earlier this afternoon with prices ranging from $35-$165. It sold out in less than 10 minutes.
The drops have represented various aspects of film history—a Blockbuster duffel bag, a T-shirt from the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, and Silence of the Lambs pin have all been available. Some highlights from the most recent drop include an MGM logo crewneck, Speed promo T-shirt, and a cross promotional T-shirt from Apple to promote 1996’s Mission: Impossible. Shahvali, who worked alongside Beyer to piece together each capsule, said that while each drop had no specific theme to it. The goal was to not make things too “gimmicky.” For example, he wouldn’t include anything from the 1993 film Free Willy.
“We wanted it to be cohesive, sort of avoiding the ironic or kitschy stuff. Cause in my mind, when you avoid that, it makes it a little more wearable. A piece could be like 40 years old, 30 years old, but it’s wearable in 2022,” Shahvali tells Complex. “The overall goal is to appreciate the craft of the promo or the merch stuff that we’re celebrating. For example, we decided like we’re not gonna put any Free Willy, but like Anaconda is something we’re gonna try and find. Free Willy feels a little schticky in my mind. I think that was like the sort of headline. Let’s respect and appreciate and celebrate the culture and not have it be gimmicky.”
We caught up with Shahvali ahead of the third release to discuss his process for sourcing vintage, his relationship with A24, his goals for the future of Intramural Shop, and more.
(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
