Downtown Wichita will see a new addition, thanks to some former and current Wichita State students.

Co-owners Kenzie Borland, Morgan Goodwin, Gabrielle Griffie and Lazarus Massey will open a vintage store across from the newly renovated Naftzger Park. Borland is a former Sunflower photographer. 

With Borland’s grandparents having once owned an antique store and styles from decades ago coming back in style, it’s all coming full circle for them.

Borland and Massey have hosted vintage pop-up shops across the city during Final Fridays and other events. The group also sold vintage items online.

 “So, after we did a couple times, we were like, ‘Okay, there might be something here,’” Borland said. “We found the space, and we’re like, ‘Well, let’s just do it then.’ Like, why not? The time is now.” 

The shop will sell vintage goods including clothing, costume and real jewelry, and “kitschy” items. 

Borland said that with throwback designs becoming increasingly popular in fashion, she believes the shop will be a successful venture.

“There’s companies like Nike and Adidas and Reebok that are doing throwback styles of their old designs like relaunched, basically,” Borland said.

“Everyone’s kind of really starting to appreciate the older style a lot more.”

The shop, located at 626 Douglas, is right in the heart of downtown, something Borland said was important to the group when picking their space.

“I think downtown in general for us was the dream location,” Borland said. “Partly because I grew up in Riverside. So I grew up like in the downtown area really loving this area. But all of our pop-ups have been downtown.

“We have never even considered doing a pop-up outside of downtown because this is just the place to be for, you know — younger people. There’s older generations here because it has that historical aspect. There’s a lot of diversity here.”

Borland said she’s hopeful that the location will contribute to their success.

“Downtown also is important for us because there’s always, always going to be more development in this area,” Borland said. “This is an area that can always be better, which is what I think any neighborhood strives to kind of achieve is this place of like, we are growing but we always have more room to grow. 

“Being downtown, it’s kind of almost like a security of like, no one is ever going to forget about us because we are downtown. We were in the center of – the dead center of Wichita.”

The grand opening for Dead Center Vintage is scheduled for Saturday. The opening will also have live music by LJ, Ben Dipper, The Cavves, and Jordana.