AUSTIN, Texas — Austin's City-Wide Vintage Sale has been going on since 1977 and back this weekend for the first time since January.
Several weekends throughout the year, dozens of antique and specialty vendors bring their pieces to the Palmer Events Center for the sale.
One vendor brought a type of Texas Western flair to the market this weekend.
“My aesthetic is sort of vintage Western meets rock and roll,” Marisela Flores, the owner of Pixie & the Moon Vintage, said. “I like to curate what in my mind would be the dream closet.”
Flores has been collecting one-of-a-kind Western pieces from the 1940s through the 1980s for the past two years. It all started after she lost her job during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was previously a buyer for high-end brands like Prada and Bottega Veneta.
“I started dabbling into vintage Western wear, and I started out doing a show in Nashville,” Flores said. “It just kind of took off from there.”
In May, Flores opened up her shop in Round Top, Texas. Now she travels all over Texas and several other states like Arizona, Utah and California to find the one-of-a-kind pieces. One examples is a pair of vintage red boots from the 1950s that were custom made in Mexico.
“Sometimes I wonder who would have had these, you know, a long time ago. It could have been somebody on stage,” Flores said. “If some of these clothes could talk, it would be some interesting stories that come out of it.”
Flores has clients from all over the world that come to purchase her Western pieces.
“This is a woman, a socialite who could have anything, and one of the things she told me is that, you know, ‘I buy vintage, Marisela, because I know that wherever I go, nobody else is going to have it on.' And I thought, That’s brilliant,'" Flores said.
On Sunday, Flores had a client from Spain who loves to shop from her collection.
“I’m looking for things that are special here and are good quality also,” Patricia Morrell said. “I bought some very typical Texan pieces … You can’t buy those pieces in Spain."
Another reason Flores finds her pieces special is the era in which they were made.
“I think back in the day, they really put more thought process and used the best materials to make things,” Flores said. “I think now, with fast fashion, since everything’s so mass-produced, it’s probably not done with the same quality.”
The next City-Wide Vintage Sale will be from June 22-23. The schedule for the rest of the year can be found on the event's website. Admission is $10 and free for kids under 12.