My favorite store for vintage clothing
Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. ( We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).
When Buffalo Exchange, the Tucson, Ariz.- based vintage clothing retailer, shuttered its stores around Denver and Boulder in July 2020, it left a gaping hole in the vintage community.
The stores’ employees were left jobless during the pandemic, and many thrift shoppers ( like me) were left wondering where we would find our vintage gems. But last year, a new store filled the void, hoping to create a new hub for vintage vendors.
Show Pony Vintage, located at 2025 S. University Blvd. in Denver, opened in January 2022. It’s where my friends and I can spend whole Sunday afternoons, mixing and matching dad jeans from the ‘ 80s with vintage bomber jackets or rock n’ roll T- shirts, or searching every rack for something with Betty Boop on it.
The colorful, retro store is a collective of vintage and secondhand clothing, jewelry, accessories and home goods from 15 local vendors, who rent out racks monthly and pay commissions to the store. Incidentally, “vintage” is defined as anything from 2003 and before, according to Show Pony Vintage owner, Emily Hawver. ( No, we’re not trying to make you feel old.)
“Everything the vendors bring in, they curate, price and find themselves, and it’s kind of to their style and liking versus just one person curating the whole shop,” Hawver said. “I think that always makes for a much better shopping experience because there are always different styles, pricing and sizing. There’s something for everybody.”
Before COVID- 19 hit in 2020, Hawver was running a booth at an antique mall in Littleton, selling curated furniture. But the
pandemic made her rethink things, so she decided to take her passion for thrifting seriously. The result: Show Pony Vintage.
Not long before Show Pony Vintage opened, local demand for curated secondhand and vintage clothing jumped after Buffalo Exchange closed its three stores in Denver and Boulder in July 2020 as a result of a slew of employee abuse allegations that were shared on Instagram. Former employees filed a lawsuit
against Colorado franchise managing partner Patrick Todd Colletti in May 2021, and the case was settled out of court in the fall of 2022, according to court documents.
“It was a bummer when Buffalo Exchanges closed around town because it was a great place for a lot of people, but we’re just creating bigger and better things from the downfall of those places,” Hawver said.
The vendors who curate the store also help run it, and restock the store every week, so it always looks new.
For shoppers, it’s an adventure: It takes time and
effort to sift through different eras of clothing to find something that can work in your modern wardrobe, or even something that fits you perfectly. And you’re
even more proud when someone asks you where you got it, and you know they can’t visit a fast- fashion website to copy it.
I had a “Sisterhood of
the Traveling Pants” moment a couple of weeks ago there when I tried on a pair of vintage Tommy Hilfiger red leather pants that somehow fit me perfectly,
which of course I had to take home.