This Santa Fe Cowboy Shop Is Proof That Vintage Shopping Is Better Outside of New York City

I was in a rush to go back to Kowboyz. I had been to the decades-old vintage Westernwear outpost just a few days earlier, a stop I always make on my annual trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to visit my family during the holidays. Though I’d already scored an amazing blush pink suede button-up embroidered with flowers, there was another shirt that I couldn’t get out of my mind so, after my self-prescribed once-daily vacation margarita, I rushed over to pick it up. I grabbed the ivory-color cowboy shirt with pearlescent snap-closure buttons and metallic gold thread, tried it on in less than five seconds, and raced up to the counter to pay. But after I flung my credit card out stick-em-up style, the sales lady gave me pause. Sighing as she folded the polyester H Bar C Long Tail California Ranchwear shirt, she looked at me with actual tears in her eyes, and said, “This is one of my favorites. It’s always so hard to let some of the things in here go.”

That, I realized, is the fundamental difference between shopping for vintage fashion in a sprawling city like New York City and acquiring it in a place slightly off the beaten path. Here, in the Land of Enchantment, in a store chock-full of Wrangler jeans and ten-gallon hats, the shirt I had to have was much more than a souvenir. There’s character and authenticity here, even after knowing that the original owners first settled in Los Angeles and outfitted stars like Brad Pitt, Elton John, and Sean Penn.

In the cavernous Santa Fe outpost, the walls are lined with every style and color cowboy boot imaginable, some stamped with butterflies and others decorated with fringe. Next to the window lined with dusty country albums there’s a rack holding ornate ensembles with rainbow stitching and embellished lapels. There are items with tags that read “Diamond Leathers,” “Cripple Creak,” and “Woman Rangers.” A spooky cowboy mannequin and 1950s pony ride sit outside the front door, and a life-size cardboard cutout of John Wayne stands proudly inside, protecting one of the boot-lined aisles.

For any lasso-twirling neophyte, it’s a lot to take in. The several times I’ve passed through Kowboyz I’ve never felt confident enough to go for the whole head-to-toe Ali MacGraw meets Calamity Jane look I’ve always dreamed of pulling off. I’ve purchased some plain black leather boots and have dabbled in turquoise jewelry, but being the born-and-bred city slicker that I am, I was always a skeptic. Besides, as my stylish mother who grew up between Roswell and Santa-Fe taught me, you never want to walk out of a store like this one looking as if you’ve just deplaned your private jet from Dallas. (Ladies of the Lone Star State visiting New Mexico: Just because you throw on a bolo tie and a cowboy hat with your diamonds and mink coat, it doesn’t make you look like a local.)

I was happily surprised to find that the shirts I found worked well with my favorite M.i.h flared jeans and purple velvet Dries Van Noten boots. I was certainly still suspect of fully embracing a classic Southwestern uniform, but among the spurs, I’d discovered just the right amount of twang to mix into my distinctly urban wardrobe. Furthermore, this particular shopping excursion made me realize what a real vintage prize can look like. It’s not about grabbing as many ’90s label finds from Beacon’s Closet as I can, or impulsively splurging on a pair of Gucci heels from the ’70s. It’s not about dressing the part of a Westerner but rather, dressing in something that feels truly special long after you walk out of the musty-smelling shop.

I may not get a ton of wear out of my two rodeo-ready purchases, but I’ll know that they mean more than a designer label vintage piece rapidly unearthed somewhere in lower Manhattan, both to me and to the sweet local lady at the counter who sold it. She isn’t a fashion aficionado or a self-professed style obsessive hawking slightly used Chanel tweeds, she’s just a woman who really loves a good old-fashioned cowboy.

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