Nov. 16, 2025
Fashioning a Comeback: Christos Garkinos on Resilience and Reinvention
Send us a text In this dynamic episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we are thrilled to welcome Christos Garkinos, a visionary leader in the luxury resale market and the author of the bestselling book, "Cover the Comeback." With over 25 years of experience in fashion and media, Christos shares his remarkable journey from a young Greek immigrant in Detroit to working alongside Richard Branson at Virgin Megastores. He opens up about the challenges he faced in his career, including a signi...
In this dynamic episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we are thrilled to welcome Christos Garkinos, a visionary leader in the luxury resale market and the author of the bestselling book, "Cover the Comeback." With over 25 years of experience in fashion and media, Christos shares his remarkable journey from a young Greek immigrant in Detroit to working alongside Richard Branson at Virgin Megastores. He opens up about the challenges he faced in his career, including a significant personal crisis that led him to become sober and ultimately inspired his writing. Christos discusses how he reinvented the resale industry, earning the title of the "Robin Hood of fashion," by making luxury items accessible to a broader audience. Listeners will gain insights into his innovative live streaming venture, Covet by Christos, which has become a leading platform for luxury goods. Join us for an inspiring conversation filled with resilience, creativity, and the power of reinvention. Discover more about Christos and his work at Covet by Christos on Instagram and find his book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I, I am joined by the leader of Live Stream all ah, things luxury, Christos Garquinos. You got it right Christos. I'm glad I did. Well, Christos has a 25 year career fashion and media. He's called the Robin Hood of fashion and he reinvented the resellers market. So we're going to be talking to him about everything that he's up to and how he was working under Richard Branson and everything that he's going to be up to. So Christos, thank you so much for joining me.
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> Christos Garquinos>So excited being here. I'm very excited. I listen to some of your other shows and I'm very excited to kind of make that, make the connection and talk to you today.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, we're excited to have you. So why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.
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> Christos Garquinos>Well hi everybody, my name is Christos. I live here in Hollywood, California. I've lived here in L. A for almost 30 years but I've come from the 313. I'm a Detroit boy. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, the son of immigrants, of Greek immigrants. and you know Greek folks tend to have restaurants. I started working in my parents restaurant like at age four, because you know, free children labor, that's what they say. So I kind of was bathed in like the entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial spirit at a very young age.
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> Christos Garquinos>working at my parents restaurant cook called me town in and that just kind of gave me the spirit to kind of like really be my own boss at some point in my life. And I've had like a really varied and really fun career and I've learned so many things. I've gotten knocked down and got back up again, probably 10 times my life easy. And I'm here today, kind of spread the message because like you know my book covered the comeback which is just came out, was a bestseller. kind of speaks to like you know those moments in your life where you, you feel like there is nothing there in front of you and then all of a sudden a path opens. So that's what I'm here for today.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well walk the listeners through your, your ah, 25 year career in media and fashion and you know, tell us how you got there.
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> Christos Garquinos>Okay, well yeah, it's actually longer than that now when I think about it. But I, So basically I, was in Detroit. And then basically I, you know, got a job right out of school at a company called Clorox in Oakland. So, and they. I learned this thing called brand management. It's very corporate. I love fashion from a young, young age.
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> Christos Garquinos>You know, I. I used to work at a store called Lord Taylor. I, you know, I love. I love, love fashion.
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> Christos Garquinos>My dad looked like, you know, a rock star. So I always watched m him getting dressed and, you know. But I needed to get a job. So my first job was very conservative. I showed up in a seersucker suit the first day thinking that was conservative, you know, and they sent me home because it wasn't.
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> Christos Garquinos>It was too, too, too liberal there. So I had to, like, go get changed into a gray suit. but I made it, try to make it look as possible. So I always had, like, a fashion, blood in me, you know, wanting to do something. And then. And then, I, you know, from that job, I was accepted to Harvard, business school to go to business school at Harvard. and I went there. And, you know, one thing. First off, I'm Greek and I'm gay. So those are two important things in my life. Greek and gay. And so, I went. This is 1990. I went to Harvard. And I already was out of the closet at that point, at age 23. And I recognized I had to go back in the closet to go to school there at that point. Obviously today that'd be different story. So I decided to take a pause in Harvard.
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> Christos Garquinos>And then one of my old bosses at Clorox called me and said, hey, I'm starting at Disney. And Disney was the hottest company in the world in 1992, 1993. so I moved to Los Angeles, actually in 1990.
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> Christos Garquinos>And then, I worked at Disney, which was the best company to work for at that point. Like, literally, it was booming. And so Disney, Disney, I was doing so well there that they shipped me across, to London to, open up all the Disney stores across Europe. Now, I loved it. So you can imagine working with costume characters and stores. And we started in the UK and then I ended up opening 45 stores across six countries, being the head of marketing at a very young age of 28.
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> Christos Garquinos>so that taught me about entertainment and marketing, and I, you know, I loved it. But, like, the one thing I. The one thing I love more than all that fashion too, was Music. I mean, I love music. My parents had a jukebox in my restaurant growing up, and so I really wanted to get into music. And, And I would go, do you remember these Virgin Megastores? I don't know. Where do you live? Where do you live? What city are you? New York.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>I'm originally from Louisiana, but living in Wichita, Kansas.
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> Christos Garquinos>Oh, no way. My partner's from, Monroe, Louisiana.
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> Christos Garquinos>And, Wichita. I've been. I was there once actually, in, Wichita. And so I, I, So I. You know, one thing I love to do is I go to the Paris.
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> Christos Garquinos>I go to, I go to, the. The Virgin Megastore, which is these big stores that used to sell these things called CDs. A lot of people don't know what those are anymore, but CDs, and, the one in Paris I love so much. And like, you know, when you're young and young and whatever, I, You know, you talk about like you're trying to manifest, like, your. Your dream job. And my dream job was to work for Richard Branson, who I think is the best. The biggest and best entrepreneur out there in the world. And I said, I know my job would be it's the vice president of marketing or head of marketing for Bertram Megastore in, you know, back in America for Richard Branson. Everybody's like, well, good luck with that. They only have one store and, you know, blah, blah, blah. Six months later, I'm on a really bad blind date. Bad, bad, bad, bad blind date. And I'm still living in London. And, I, like, lie and say I'm sick. And so I go to the Virgin Megastore in. In, in London, and I see this, you know, this thing called Billboard Magazine. Billboard's like the, you know, the. The bible of, like, the music business to this day. And, you know, I used to love watching the charts and seeing who, you know, was going up and down the charts. I'd get that magazine out and there'd be, you know, this is like a magazine that I picked up like four weeks later from when it was first published. And they have like the One ads in the back. So they flip through the One ads just to see whatever. And there it was. Head of marketing, Virgin Megastores North America. And I was like.
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> Christos Garquinos>I think I may have screamed in the store. I was like, oh, my God. This is like what I manifested.
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> Christos Garquinos>I gotta get this job. So I, The next day. Cause there was no cell. There was no cell phones or, you Know anything Internet wise at that point. I faxed my resume and I happened to be in LA a week later and I got the job. And that's where my life really changed was when I left Disney and they want me to leave. But I ended up working with Richard Branson for seven years. And during that time back here in la, we opened up all the Virgin Manga stores across the country. I hobnobbed every night with every music celebrity you ever could imagine from Janet Jackson to Madonna to share to rock bands. And definitely was living the life here in la. And was able to dress finally the way I like to dress. I didn't have to be conservative because at Disney I still had to wear all my M.
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> Christos Garquinos>Disney stuff. So that job was great until I was on Fox, I was the head of marketing so I was always on television talking about what was going on. So I was on Fox News, and they asked me about like hey Chris, there's this new thing called digital music, a thing called Napster. I'm like, what is Napster? Napster, Digital music. This will never ever affect my job or what we do. Well, I was out of a job in about a year because of course that came in and now everybody, some people still, I guess I don't know about you, I still do like vinyl but you know, CDs are gone. So those all went away. and then so I was kind of stuck. And those moments of your life, like now what do I do?
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> Christos Garquinos>Right? So I'm sure you've had those moments in your life. You're like, what's next? Right?
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely. Yeah.
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> Christos Garquinos>Yeah. So, yeah, so what I did was I, I mean, so what I did was is I I had started a small resale shop on the side selling like the closest celebrities. This is before, you know, this before everybody, you know, one of the first people to do it with a partner of mine. And and I said hey, I'm out of a job, I'll come stay there for six months.
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> Christos Garquinos>A store called, was a store in L. A And I'll just hang out for six, you know, for six months and then figure out my next step. I ended up staying there like 13 years. And we kind of became like the Mecca for all things, you know, fashion. And I loved it and resale and, and it led to a TV show.
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> Christos Garquinos>I have my own show on Bravo called Dukes of Melrose that was for a season. And the whole reason why I did the show like, you know, My best friend's gar. My best friend's Garcelle Bovet, who was just a housewife on, Housewives. and she just, you know, she loved the show, but she was great for the show to give her a platform to do other things. And my whole. Whole goal in life from a kid other than Richard Branson, was to have my own line on the Home Shopping Network. I'd watch it for hours and, like, I applauded people and wanted people. And I, and my manager at the time, we were working on something. I said, listen, I'm going to go do the show for Bravo. But I needed to be tied to, like, me having my own show on the Home Shopping Network. So we went and pitched them the idea and another dream came through, and that's when I got my line, the Home Shopping Network.
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> Christos Garquinos>And, that was in 2013.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>And.
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> Christos Garquinos>And, you know, it was like the dream of a lifetime until it all wasn't a dream. so that's like. That was like. That was. Took me to about age 48, 49, where, like, everything I touched, basically touched, to go whenever I did something. So it was a good. It was a good time, in my life, with fashion, everything. And then things, took a turn, which I talk about my book for the worst for some years. And so this last 10 years has been about, like, kind of climbing back to the. Not the top, but like, to be back where I was, where I was before.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, talk to the listeners about your book and your live stream. You know, tell the listeners where you can. Where. What we can expect when we read your book, where to pick it up. And I talk about your live stream as well, if you still got it going on.
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> Christos Garquinos>Oh, yeah, Gotta go. Yeah, it's basically like, you know, five years ago, you know, I was, you know, I had like, some personal stuff come up, and it's a detail in my book cover, the Comeback. And I, you know, I was a million dollars in debt. I just had to. And so what I was doing is, I was. I was doing trunk shows in different cities, like Detroit, Omaha, taking my Chanel and Hermes bags. You know, so I do that. So I sell vintage goods in these cities. I was actually in Omaha, Nebraska, which is one of my biggest cities. I actually did. I don't think I did a show in Wichita. I did something I did in Kansas City. I did, some drunk shows there. But 2020 came and I was screwed. I was like, oh, my gosh, like, now what? And. And I was Coming off the road because of the pandemic, because that's my base. My whole business is based on that. I'm like, am I going to move back to Michigan? Like, what am I going to do? And so, what happened was I. Someone said, take look, take a look at Instagram Live. I'm like, what is Instagram Live? And I turned it on and do you know D. Nice. The dj. So he had like a hundred thousand people watching him. Remember Aubrey was watching him like on Instagram. And I was like, oh my God, this is great. I ended up meeting him, who's a great, he's a great guy. And I was like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna make this, this happen. I'm gonna go sell my bags, you know. And so I went live March 23, 2020. And on Covet by Christos, it's called Covet by Christos. C O V E T by Christos on Instagram. And eight people watched, three of whom were family members. No one was watching. And I was like, I got to figure this out. So I just kept coming back every night at 5 o' clock and it kept growing and I finally, I built this network finally. And now, you know, so we bring in people, have things to sell, whether it be clothing or books or beauty, anything that, that we deem right for our network. The things I would covet. And we've grown to be the largest luxury live streamer on Instagram or anywhere. we have over $200 million in sales since inception.
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> Christos Garquinos>So it's been this crazy successful business. And I've got like a great following, a great community. And so you can, every day, up to eight to 10 hours a day, you can tune into Covered, by Christos and maybe find your favorite Chanel bag, or find a beautiful blouse or find latest beauty product or find something for the home. So it's kind of a modern day home shopping network. But, that's live stream on Instagram.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, can I tell the listeners about your book?
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> Christos Garquinos>What?
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>We can.
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> Christos Garquinos>Of course. the book. The book is a great read.
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> Christos Garquinos>It's funny. you know, I, you know, I'm, you know, I, I definitely had, I kind of alluded to earlier, I had the hard time in my life in like my late 40s and I went off the deep end, so I had to become sober in my life. So May, May, May, May 2016, I became sober in my life. It's a lot, my sobriety gets talked about a lot. In the book about, like, how it's helped me come back and I celebrate 10 years next year, of being sober. And so the book really takes me through that. When you're age 4, starting, like, working for Greek parents, in my whole life and the people I've met, you know, the celebrities I met, it's a really funny read, I think. But you also will learn about, like, when you're, you know, you know, I, you know, there's been moments in my life where I'm like, you know, God, like, you know, please show me the way. And like, I, I feel like, you know, you know, when you're able to. Now what I'm doing now is I'm testifying. You know, when I got sober in May 2016, because my life had been out of control, I thought that by getting sober, everything would just magically, magically get better. And it wasn't. Because in six months of getting sober, when you think your life's going to turn around, my mom died, my two favorite aunts died, my dog died. I lost my business, and I got a divorce in six months. And I felt like I was in a train wreck for six months. And finally I came out of it and I kept saying, why me, God, why me? Why me? And it's why me is like, what I'm talking today. I'm able to talk about this and go, like, I came through that. I had faith, I stayed in solution. And so the book kind of gives you those tools to talk about, like, how to, like, stay in solution, how when something is facing, facing you in adversity, like, how to get around it, how to ask for help, all these sort of things. and, you know, it's a really fun read. So that's what it's about. It's available on Amazon and Bargain.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yeah, well, you reshaped the, the, the, the reseller industry that they call you the Robin Hood of fashion, you know, so kind of talk to the listeners about that and how you did it.
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> Christos Garquinos>Oh, yeah. So, you know, I, you know, I, I, I, I, I actually call myself that. It's basically like, you know, I take from the real rich and I sell it to the slightly real, less rich, right? And so basically, you know, you come out and you get deals, you get close at 60 to 70% off. so resell is like, you know, resale was like a little baby, you know, business, like, 26 years ago when I was there at the beginning, and now it's booming. It's actually like, you know, it's booming. It's up 30% every year. So you can see what's happening in terms of like, you know, the poshmarks of the world, the ebay's of the world, the best years of the world. everybody's doing it, so. But I'm the leader in it, so people trust me. And, that's what Covered by Christless is all about.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, well, let the listeners know about any upcoming projects, that you're working on that we need to be aware of. Besides your book.
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> Christos Garquinos>The book is great. there may be a little TV adaptation of the book happening, which is very exciting. and we're in talks with some Hollywood producers. we're plugging away, we're getting into new categories. we're just expanding and testing.
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> Christos Garquinos>And so like, you know, 30% of all, retail in China is done this way. Live streaming in the U.S. it's just 0.5%. It's, it's like baby stage. So there's so much growth to be had in this category. So that's what I'm looking forward to.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>That live streaming, ah, is done on TikTok. Ah, because I actually interview somebody who, who does it like that.
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> Christos Garquinos>Oh yeah, yeah, TikTok. We, we're, we're starting to get on TikTok. Most of our platforms on Instagram. We've been doing our website and some other platforms. But yeah, we, we, we think. I didn't realize. I, I didn't know what I was doing.
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> Christos Garquinos>I was here before TikTok and, and whatnot. I had no idea what I was doing apparently. Like, I, I disrupted things. So there you go.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, throw out your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.
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> Christos Garquinos>Sure. So I'm available. You can find me at Covet by Christos on Instagram. C O V E T by my first name, Christos. C H R I S C H R I S T O S and you can find my book cover to come back on, Amazon and, and Barnes and Noble.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts for the listeners.
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> Christos Garquinos>I just feel like, you know, from a message standpoint, you know, you know, just if, when you're feeling down and you feel like, you know, you know, you know, you're kind of like wondering like, why is me? Or like if you're like, if you're too much in your head, one thing I always do is I tell people, like, ask somebody else how they're doing. Get outside your head. Like, get into someone else's life and ask them how they're doing to take your mind off what's going on with you.
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> Christos Garquinos>And I would also say that, just don't listen to naysayers. My good friend is a woman named Anastasia, the Brow Queen. I went to her book launch yesterday and she kept talking about, like, you know, just do it. Just get in. Don't, don't, don't think too much. Like, if I did this, I did that. And like, you just got to jump in the water and kind of just. And then the universe does take you where you need to go. So, yeah.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen, check out Covet by Christos on Instagram. C O V E T. Check out that live stream. Like you said, maybe you'll find something you're looking for. Follow Rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Follow us on your favorite podcast platform and for any feedback, guest suggestions, or if you yourself would like to be a guest on the Living the Dream with curveball show, visit www.curveball337.com. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Christos, thank you for all that you do. And thank you for joining me.
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> Christos Garquinos>Thank you. It was lots of fun. Appreciate it.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep living the dream.
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