Web Whacked Worldtek — Then Gave Son Wings

In the empty shell of his dad’s old travel agency, Topper Luciani, Jr. is launching his own business with venture capital — selling shirts, ties, and dresses from his father’s era with an internet-savvy touch.

Luciani (pictured tossing clothes in a moment of frivolity during a tour) runs an online vintage clothing store called Nifty Thrifty. The three-person operation, with an inventory of 2,000, is now sprawled out across the former headquarters of the Worldtek travel agency.

He has taken over one floor of a building owned by his dad, Topper Luciani Sr., who founded the Worldtek travel agency in 1966. Topper, Sr.‘s business employed 150 people at 111 Water St. in its heyday in the early ​‘90s before shrinking when the Web cut customers’ reliance on travel agencies.

With Van Morrison amplified from his iPod on Friday morning, Luciani, Jr. leaned over a makeshift table he made out of one of his dad’s doors. The room used to house agents who planned flights for golf conferences. Now it’s the ​“nest” where he types away on a laptop and prepares inventory.

He took out a tape measure and counted off the length of a T‑shirt, which he’d later catalogue and advertise online. In the background, a set of clocks hung on the wall left over from his dad’s business, tracking the time in six time zones. The door still holds the logo of his dad’s outfit, which he sold in 2007 and has since moved to Audubon Street.

Luciani, Jr.‘s business doesn’t need a sign on the door. All his marketing takes place online, on Facebook, Twitter and a newer site called Pinterest, where online shoppers ​“pin” web pages or consumer goods and promote them in a personalized online board.

Nifty Thrifty just entered the Pinterest business last week, enabling customers to ​“pin” their goods with the click of a mouse. Luciani said the site is emerging as the new ​“biggest driver of e‑commerce.”

Nifty Thrifty launched last November with money from a venture capitalist in California. The first item, a Christian Dior silk nightgown, sold on Nov. 12 to a customer in South Carolina for $59.99 plus $4.95 shipping.

Since then the outfit has sold nearly 1,000 pieces of clothing from its unsuspecting hideout on Water Street right next to the Metropolitan Business Academy.

Luciani led the Independent up a rusty staircase into a lively laboratory decorated with discoveries from thrift stores.

He walked into a room covered with piles of new arrivals. Luciani and his handful of employees, or sometimes friends in other cities, pluck out nice-quality ties and T‑shirts from thrift stores.

After the clothes are sorted, Luciani and his right-hand man, 23-year-old Trevor Rykowski, measure the length and width and rate their quality on a scale of one to five. The clothes get photographed in a small room with tripods and a white background, where Luciani sometimes gets his friends to pose. (They later get Photoshopped out of the picture.)

The images get uploaded to the Website for the world to see. (Visitors have to create a log-in.)

Luciani, who’s 29, arrived at this idea after the recession sank his first business, a New York-based manufacturer of polo shirts called Sir Drake. In 2009, he ​“ate humble pie” and moved back to his parents’ home in Woodbridge. He started selling items on eBay — anything he could find.

Luciani struck gold with one product — neck ties. It turned out they were very easy to list and sell. He just had to measure the length and width and write down the brand name. If there’s a stain, he said, you ​“throw it out.”

Luciani concentrated his efforts on the ties and became eBay’s number one seller of neckties, he said. (He still sells so many neckties that they have their own room.)

After spending so much effort promoting his own brand of clothes, he said, he discovered it was so much easier to ​“piggyback” on existing brands — ​“and not have to sell the hype of my own bullshit.” His old company, Sir Drake, focused on ​“logos that mocked the idea of the logo,” an ambitious concept.

Luciani decided the web needed a centralized place where people could buy vintage clothes from a curated collection with consistent quality. Some Goodwills in San Francisco sell clothes online, he said, but there’s a big need for an efficient web tool to sell them en masse.

Luciani landed one venture capital deal last July to kick off his website. He said he’s closing in on a second deal with an investor to expand the business. His goal is to hire more staff, increase the volume of sales, and eventually amass an inventory of five million pieces.

Right now, the outfit makes about five sales per day.

Rykowski plucked a few T‑shirts from the racks of the sales room and folded them neatly.

He wrapped them in brown paper, tied them up with string …

… and added a handwritten thank-you note.

The duo showed up to Friday’s interview wearing ties, and a vest and a funky vest from their collection. They don’t always dress like that, Luciani said; but they often wear company clothes.

Sometimes they get tired after a long time measuring T‑shirts, Luciani said. He

“Let’s get nifty!” he calls out.

That’s signal for a costume change, he explained. They hit the racks and get a new look, for inspiration.

“We try to outdo each other. It’s fun.”

The 11,000-square-foot space has plenty of space for 20-somethings to let off steam. There’s the music room, where Rykowski, a drummer, practices with his band.

There are several ​“nap nooks.” And a kitchen where they fry up food (after carefully sealing off the area with a tapestry, so the smells don’t creep into the collection).

The space has some remnants of its former use, like a large Lufthansa map (pictured) and a Pan Am clock.

Luciani, Sr. let his son take over the space, free of rent, while Nifty Thrifty got going. With that generous gesture, he helped the next generation follow his footsteps.

Luciani Sr. (pictured), who’s now 72, got his start in business when he was 19 years old. He and his brother Ken opened a fruit stand in Woodbridge. After graduating from UConn, they decided to buy a franchise of the Fugazy International travel agency.

They built the business up from scratch, eventually landing a contract with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). At its peak, Worldtek employed 300 people in 30 offices around the nation; it handled flights for Yale, the Knights of Columbus and national conferences.

The turning point came in the mid-‘90s, Luciani, Sr. said, when airlines stopped giving commissions to travel agents. The business changed forever as people started for their own deals on the Web. Luciani, Sr. sold the business in 2007, a few years after his brother died. He’s now working on a web start-up in the travel industry.

Travel sites these days ​“just push price,” he said. At Worldtek, he said, ​“we were selling the sizzle of everything.”

Luciani, Jr. helped interview his dad about his past Friday. ​“I love hearing the stories,” he said.

So Long, New Haven

Then he announced he’ll be flying off on his own: Thanks to the pending venture capital deal, Nifty Thrifty plans to move to Brooklyn in June.

Luciani said he’s relocating in order to be closer to an emerging community of tech startups in New York. Venture capitalists have started looking to New York as a new ​“Silicon Alley” of entrepreneurship, he noted.

Anne Haynes, director of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which has helped both father and son connect to business resources, called the move disappointing.

“It’s sad to see a company go,” Haynes said. But it’s also a sign of success that New Haven can prove a good incubator for new businesses, she argued.

New Haven has many old buildings being re-purposed for new businesses, she noted. She mentioned Erector Square, Science Park, 300 George St., and the Robby Len building on State, which has been reborn as a workout mecca.

“It’s clearly a great place to incubate a business like that,” she said.

Nifty Thrifty is moving to Brooklyn in part due to encouragement from its venture capital partner to be part of the growing community there.

“Venture capital firms like to have their companies close by,” Haynes acknowledged. ​“You want to keep [a startup] under as close watch as possible,” she said, because ​“young entrepreneurs don’t have as much business experience.”

New Haven has some venture capital (VC) firms, but most of the ones in Connecticut are in Greenwich, Haynes said.

“We’ve been trying to get the word out to VCs that to stay in New Haven” would be a huge cost-saver, she said. New Haven has a strong, nurturing community for startups, she added.

Haynes said if New Haven is successful in getting out that message, startups won’t be leaving New Haven for Brooklyn (or, as in this case, Cambridge). ​“Companies will be trying to come from Brooklyn and Boston back to New Haven,” she predicted.