Like Coco Chanel, Christina Samoylov is a bit of a maverick.

At 23, Christina set up an eBay shop in 2011—a then-newfangled approach to selling vintage wares—and sold goods as a side hustle while she pursued a degree at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles.

To stock her eBay shop, Christina would scour Los Angeles thrift stores and auction off her lucky finds. But, to really scale her business into a full-time gig, Christina carved out a niche for herself and zeroed in on vintage Chanel handbags and jewelry. Christina’s venture received an incredible boon after an avid Chanel collector approached Christina asking for help to consign a Chanel collection, valued at—wait for it—$2 million.

Since that fortuitous encounter, Christina has moved off eBay and built her business, Designer Vault, a partnering TrueFacet vendor. Designer Vault is regarded as the premier online consignment shop for authentic vintage Chanel pieces. By personally handling, authenticating, and valuating hundreds of vintage Chanel pendants, earrings and brooches, Christina has become a veritable expert in her field.

We spoke with Christina to pick her brain about her top style tips, investing in vintage, and how she upholds the rebellious spirit of Coco Chanel.

Which vintage Chanel pieces are trending right now?
Necklaces are coming back. For a while they weren’t selling as well, but now they’re really making a comeback, whereas brooches were [previously] really hot sells and now they’re slowly tapering off. I feel like when fall comes around, people are more interested in necklaces as festive pieces, especially the pearls and CC necklaces.

What would you recommend as an investment-worthy vintage Chanel piece?
If you’re looking for a real investment piece, I would say a bracelet or a brooch. A CC brooch never goes out of style, regardless of when it was made. And, for bracelets, a Chanel 7 Icon Charm Bracelet is my favorite. Throughout my experience, this is the one bracelet that consistently sells at the same price; there’s no variance on it. It’s just a classic Chanel staple piece that you’ll treasure forever. 

Which item do you wear every day?
I’m addicted to brooches and my favorite is the “Little Monsters” brooch (which is exactly what it looks like: a little monster). I like a lot of the things that most people don’t have because I see those popular pieces all the time. I also just bought myself my first J12 watch!

How do you style your vintage pieces so they feel contemporary and cool and not overly retro?
I know I can always pin a Chanel brooch on a blazer and it always looks cool. But, because I collect brooches, I’ll wear four or five at a time and that makes them feel super contemporary.

With bracelets, I really like the cuffs and, to make them edgier, I like to wear them higher on the arm, up towards your elbow. Or, with bracelets and necklaces, layering them together or with different brands is always interesting.

What life lessons have you gleaned from Coco Chanel?
The one thing that always sticks out to me about Coco is how she went against the grain, against what everyone said was “the norm” in the fashion industry, and just went for it. And eventually people started responding.

I feel like that’s how I run things with my business: I went against the norm in that I didn’t go get financing and, instead, followed my own intuition. And now, people are responding! So that is what has already resonated with me: how she followed her heart and always goes for what she feels is best.