At Vintage by Judith, a clothing aficionado lives on through her 200,000-piece collection

Photograph by Nicholas Nudi

Downtown Austell is home to a vintage lover’s dream: 7,000 square feet of previously owned clothing and accessories, dating from the Victorian period to Y2K. It’s not a costume house or museum, but the singular collection of one woman, Judith Cucinelli Nudi. Though Nudi died in 2024, her daughter Alisa Barrau is carrying on her legacy. She operates Vintage by Judith as a private appointment boutique, with more than 200,000 of her mother’s vintage items, from Scarlett O’Hara–style hoop skirts to flapper dresses to military peacoats, available for rent and in some cases for purchase.

Nudi was around nine when she began asking family members for their cast-off dresses and jewelry. Though she became a hairdresser in adulthood, she spent her spare time hunting for vintage finds to add to her ever-growing, all-sizes collection of men’s and women’s apparel. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Barrau spent many an afternoon trekking with her mom to estate sales, alongside her sister and cousin. “We’d be sitting in the back[seat], with loads of gems she’d collected up to our necks.” As a teen, Barrau says she wasn’t thrilled by the house being taken over by antique clothing, but her mother’s enthusiasm ultimately won her over: “She saw vintage materials as art.”

In the mid-’80s, the family moved to Atlanta, and her mother decided it was the right time to pivot from hairdressing to vintage rentals. She set up Vintage by Judith as a rental clothing stall in an antiques mall, which became so successful that, in 1988, she moved to a brick-and-mortar rental boutique on Marietta Square. Barrau’s father served as a handyman, enthusiastically building shelves and installing mirrors as inventory grew.

Besides Nudi’s personal finds, the enormous collection also came to include donations from families seeking a good home for their deceased relative’s belongings. “People are looking for someone to appreciate what their loved ones had,” Barrau says.

In 2021, Nudi was diagnosed with cancer; she died in 2024 at age 77. Rather than let her mother’s legacy disappear, Barrau decided to carry it on. She’s now the boutique’s full-time manager, overseeing the collection and receiving donations from families.

At first, Barrau continued to offer only rentals, because she couldn’t imagine permanently parting with her mother’s carefully cultivated collection. “For me, these things are her,” she says. But her mind was changed, partly, by younger boutique visitors, who impressed her with their enthusiasm for the thrill of the vintage hunt and good craftsmanship. In early 2026, Barrau began offering items for sale on a case-by-case basis. She still struggles with letting them go: “Every time a piece leaves, it’s a little goodbye.” But she welcomes motivated shoppers to make an appointment, comb through the collection, and perhaps take home a special piece—and a story.

“She lives through them,” Barrau says of her mother. “She would always tell me to touch the clothes, to feel the stories, and to carry them on.”

This article appears in our July 2026 issue.

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