How This Live Shopping Platform Is Quietly Scaling Beauty

In 2020, Christos Garkinos turned to Instagram Live in the early days of the pandemic. What began as a way to connect with fashion lovers became something bigger: a luxury fashion resale business that’s sold more than $200 million to date.

Three years later, he added beauty to the mix, partnering with his longtime friend and beauty editor Kelly Atterton to lead the vertical.

“They trust what I’m selling,” said Garkinos, who has a knack for cultivating community.

Born and raised in Detroit, he moved to Los Angeles in 1990 working for Disney and Virgin Megastores with Richard Branson before getting into fashion and opening consignment shop Decades — a former retail destination for celebrities and stylists — with Cameron Silver. Garkinos went on to become a TV personality through a reality show centered on the store, “Dukes of Melrose.” But after losing his sobriety, his life unraveled; he tells the story in his memoir, “Covet the Comeback: How a Son of Greek Immigrants Found Success, Lost Everything, Then Built a Fashion Empire.”

His comeback began with hosting fashion trunk shows in cities like Omaha, Detroit and Minneapolis, where he built a devoted audience that followed him online (known as the “Stos Squad”).

With women spending $10,000 on handbags, he saw an opportunity in beauty. “It’s definitely a big growth area for us,” Garkinos said of expanding in the category, noting that it recently surpassed $2 million in sales.

The Instagram Lives — real-time beauty selling — are hosted alongside the brand founders.

“Brands get an opportunity to have moments with customers, existing customers sometimes, and new potential customers,” said Atterton. “It’s the easiest customer acquisition they can possibly do.”

Their formula is part QVC, part trunk show and rooted in engagement. The beauty viewers, around 350 per show and primarily women aged 35 to 65, tune in from cities globally. They’re engaged and eager to discover vetted indie brands and cult doctors’ lines, Atterton said, citing a recent show with Dr. Diamond that did more than $200,000 in a month.

“He came on, and then in less than an hour, we did $65,000, which is crazy,” added Garkinos. “Our shows do $10,000 to $15,000 an hour, in general.”

Now, with an in-house team of seven hosts and an app launching this October — while expanding into home — Garkinos is building what he calls “Netflix of shopping.”