One of Toronto’s most sought-after designer vintage stores has become a staple for everyone from Travis Scott to Scottie Barnes in recent years — and it all started when its founders were 12 years old.
You may not recognize 20 Maud, the collaborative space owned and operated by Alex Maxamenco and Christian Ferguson, from passing it on the street — it runs out of an expansive basement unit on Maud Street tucked in between Adelaide and Richmond — but, if you’ve got your finger on the pulse of fashion in Toronto, you’ve almost certainly heard about it.
At just 20 and 21 years old, Christian, who boast over 200,000 Instagram followers on his brand, Archive Threads’ Instagram page, and Alex, with over 50,000, have the foundations of an empire on their hands.
20 Maud’s retail space is practically overflowing with designer pieces.
Their retail space, which opened in April 2024, is brimming with rare, unique and droolworthy archival designer threads; everything from Chrome Hearts and OffWhite to Dior and — my personal favourite — a particularly replete rack of pret-a-porter Jean Paul Gaulthier.
It’s not just the eye of this yearnsome lifestyle reporter that 20 Maud has caught, though; they’ve sold and rented to an impressive roster of sports and music stars including — but not limited to — Lil Yachty, Scottie Barnes, Travis Scott, Frank Ocean and Playboy Carti.
At their young ages, such rapid success seems a strike of divine intervention, but the current manifestiation of their business is actually the fruit of nearly a decade of pounding the pavement on the resale scene for both Alex and Christian.
You read that right, they started doing this when they were only about twelve years old.
20 Maud carries eveything from Chrome Hearts to Hermes.
Christian tells me that it wasn’t always smooth sailing from the start.
“I got scammed,” he tells me; “first ever transaction, I spent my entire bank account on a Supreme crewneck through my mom’s credit card that I had to pay her back for, and this guy pulls up and trades me for a fake crewneck.”
“I think that there’s a large misconception with reselling and stuff like that, that it’s easy,” Alex adds. “Knowing how to do it right is hard, and a lot of people get [taken advantage of] along the way.”
Photos on the walls mark business milestones, like “Alex’s first time selling in 2018.”
Nevertheless, their respective businesses continued to grow, with Christian and Alex going on to become roommates and run the business out of their home for some time — an experience which they both describe as “crazy.”
“Our studio was literally a bedroom,” Christian says, in a house of six roommates and two cats, to which celebrities could frequently be seen rolling up to in black Escalades to do some shopping.
“It was just so weird, bro,” Christian says, “like, we were literally 18, 19, at the time and barely had a credit or debit system. Yeah, just, like, terrible.”
“But we made it work,” Alex adds.
The rack of archival Jean Paul Gaulthier was a personal favourite.
The secret to their success thus far? Alex tells me that it all comes down to their marketing.
“Oh, no one is doing this,” he says. “If you look at the numbers on our social media accounts, there is maybe five other people that are comparable in the world.”
With, Alex says, a combined monthly reach of about 10 million on Instagram, his and Christian’s individual brands, paired with 20 Maud, have managed to make their name largely online and, in his opinion, growing up in the social media age has allowed them to make that happen.
“Companies […] are scrambling to find people that are cool, like Pharrell, to try and implement these new marketing schemes and match what our generation is,” Alex says, “but like, we’re part of it at the core. We’re at an age where we’ve seen it converge. We are literally part of it as it’s happening.”
Christian tells me that they source their garments from “literally everywhere;” online, right here in Toronto, and around the world, which has allowed them to collect the deeply impressive inventory that keeps their clients coming back — by appointment only, of course.
Since moving into their current space just off Queen West, they’ve only continued to hit the ground running, having nearly outgrown even the spacious unit they only moved into last year.
The breadth of 20 Maud’s inventory is virtually unparalleled in Toronto.
It’s good news, then, that Alex and Christian both have big plans for the futures of their independent businesses as well as 20 Maud, which include expansion into other cities — New York and Montreal are first on their list — and moving into a larger space in Toronto.
That’s all in the future, though. For now, it’s all about the fashion, and continuing to build upon the admitedly impressive foundation they’ve already set.
Given what they’ve already accomplished — to say nothing of the impeccably curated collection in the shop — I’d reckon that it’s only up from here for Christian and Alex. After all, everyone tells you that things only get better past your 20’s, right?
20 Maud.
20 Maud is located, if you haven’t guessed it already, at 20 Maud Street, and is open by appointment only Thursday to Monday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
