Retro-active Quartet of vintage ventures makes the old new on Main Street By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:20 PM CDT Friday, May. 22, 2026

There’s something new/old going on in the heart of downtown Winnipeg.

Since the beginning of April, 468 Main St. has been home to four businesses specializing in retro clothing, furniture and housewares.

Ernie Vogt, owner of the historically-designated, three-storey site, came up with the idea last fall, when two of the four participated in a Nuit Blanche event held inside Parlour Coffee, located on the main level of the same building and run by his son Connor.

Vogt’s stated goal has been to attract more visitors to the area. After witnessing the throngs that arrived for Nuit Blanche, he set the wheels in motion to convert the then-vacant second floor into a vintage hub. Good call, that.

When all four — Archival Studios, Rewind Vintage, Aged & Faded and Eric’s Objects — held their collective grand opening on April 3 as part of that month’s First Fridays in the Exchange festivities, over 1,000 people dropped by to check them out, Vogt reports.

It’s still early, but so far, so good, he says. “This plan wasn’t about competition but rather to build growth through community, which is exactly what’s been occurring. All the people involved are fantastic and only want the best for each other.”

Here’s a look at the four enterprises that set up shop there, generally Friday to Sunday.

Archival Studios

High-school chums Arbie Lhyn Lacanlale, 26, and Adinna Vegara, 27, founded Arkibo — Tagalog for archives — in 2022, by selling second-hand, gender-neutral designs — often from their own closets — at pop-up markets in and around the city.

Meanwhile, twin sisters Annie and Anna Ma, both 30, were peddling everything from gently-worn alpaca coats to mid-century-modern tables and chairs — much of it purchased at estate sales — on Instagram, under the banner Retrofête.

The sisters were introduced to Lacanlale last summer, when Arkibo and Retrofête were both invited to display their wares for a limited period at Clothing Bakery, an established retro boutique that opened at 70 Arthur St. in May 2024.

“I remember chatting with Arbie at Clothing Bakery and realizing how passionate she was about Arkibo,” says Anna, laughingly pointing out that she’s the younger, by 60 seconds, of the two sisters.

“I asked her what her long-term dream was and she waved her hands around as if to say ‘this,’ meaning a place of her own.”

A few months later, when Vogt approached the sisters post-Nuit Blanche about renting an available space at 468 Main St., they immediately thought of Lacanlale.

“The room Ernie showed us was too big for just me and Anna, so we reached out to Arbie to ask if she’d be interested in joining us,” Annie says.

“She was, and as soon as we met Adinna, everything clicked. And because our names all start with A, we jokingly began calling ourselves the A-Team.”

Vegara, who is currently working towards a master’s degree in city planning, says she was “over the moon” to learn the Exchange District would be Arkibo’s new home.

“Being in a heritage-preserved building was very important to me, personally. You don’t have to create charm as the charm is included,” she says, pointing out original hardwood floors, century-old tin ceiling tiles and east-facing, floor-to-ceiling windows.

“I wouldn’t say that either of us caters to a specific demographic,” Anna pipes in, noting there is also a 1970s-centric photo booth on-site that is maintained by a third company, Yelo Avenue.

“Sure, we get a lot of younger people here, but our best friend’s mom is in her 60s, and she almost always leaves with one thing or other.”

Eric’s Objects

Eric Burym was 13 when he started thrifting — a set of circumstances that forced him to rely on his parents if he needed to hit a market or sale that wasn’t along a direct bus route from his family’s Southdale home.

“Not only would they drive me wherever I needed to go, they allowed me to fill up a little room in the basement with stuff from the 1950s and ‘60s I thought was cool,” says Burym, 18.

In order to fund his newfound hobby, the J.H. Bruns Collegiate alumnus began selling off pieces of his ever-growing collection, one cobalt ashtray or kitschy floor lamp at a time.

He was still in Grade 11 when he met the Ma sisters at a market in the East Exchange District, where he was a registered vendor. They traded contact information and earlier this year, when he saw online that they were getting a place of their own, he popped by to have a look.

“That’s when Anna told me Ernie was looking for three more tenants and was I interested,” he says.

“If I’m being honest, I was scared to death. But because I want this to be my full-time career — and because my parents were so supportive when I discussed it with them — I decided to give it a shot.”

Burym describes his ever-changing stock as a mixed bag. Matchbooks, wall pennants, salt-and-pepper shakers, branded T-shirts… there’s something for every taste, he contends, pausing to adjust a crimson-red, post-modern rocking chair manufactured in the 1980s by Quebec company Amisco.

The same as his counterparts at Archival Studios, he couldn’t be more pleased to be downtown.

“Seriously, where else would you want to be? The Exchange is where other vintage shops are, where the music is, where the festivals are,” he says.

“Plus this is such a relaxed atmosphere. You can grab a coffee downstairs then go from store to store at your own pace without feeling rushed.”

Aged & Faded

Two years after Connor Vu moved to Winnipeg from Vietnam, he began purchasing clothing from locales such as Value Village and Canadian Goodwill thrift stores, in an effort to save a few bucks while he was studying fine arts at the University of Manitoba.

“I started (shopping) for myself but pretty soon I had so many things that I was selling some online in order to make room in my closet. One thing led to another and by last year, I was doing one or two markets a month, all over town,” says the former resident of Ho Chi Minh City, sporting a 1970s-era leather jacket, Levi’s bootcut jeans from the ’90s and a pair of pristine, tan-coloured leather Nikes he estimates to be 30 years old.

Ninety per cent of what he sells is men’s wear, he says, directing a visitor’s attention to a display of lined jackets — a collection he intends to replace with T-shirts and shorts the second warmer weather finally arrives.

As for sharing a floor with three like-minded businesses, Vu calls it a case of “the more the merrier.”

“I don’t think anybody who comes here only visits one of us. They stroll in here, then go across the hall to Eric’s, then to the gals’ place. You couldn’t ask for a better atmosphere.”

Rewind Vintage

Brothers MacKinley and Kieran Hall, 24 and 28 respectively, both played “a ton” of basketball while growing up. It never failed, they agree; every year they would grow out of their sneakers, which caused them to try selling their old kicks online in order to raise money towards a new pair.

Noticing there was a constant demand, the then-students began spending their spare time at thrift stores in search of similar items, which they’d turn around and sell through Instagram, initially as Thrift Winnipeg 1 and later as Rewind Vintage.

It was always a “side hustle,” MacKinley explains, noting he and Kieran would do a few pop-up markets every summer, before laying low during the winter — a pattern that continued during their university years.

About 18 months ago, the Halls entered into a relationship with Parlour Coffee that saw them sell clothing there on the first Saturday of every month.

MacKinley is also a member at Community Gym, located across the hall from Parlour. One afternoon as he was exiting a workout, Ernie Vogt invited him upstairs to view a west-facing room he thought would be perfect for Rewind Vintage.

“I talked it over with Kieran and four weeks later, after staying up every night doing renovations with the help of our parents and friends, we opened to the public,” he says.

Owing to their respective careers — MacKinley is a public-school teacher while Kieran is an accountant — Rewind Vintage, the shelves of which are stocked with a wide array of goods, including Hudson’s Bay Co. coats and Harris Tweed sports jackets, is currently open three days a week, Friday to Sunday.

Sales have been so strong, mind you, that they hope to hire staff and expand their hours in time for the downtown festival season.

“We have a direct view of Old Market Square and the Cube, and I can already picture the thousands of people that will be milling about the area, come Fringe and jazz fest,” MacKinley states. “This part of town is so alive during the summer and we can’t wait to have a front-row ticket, here at the store.”

For more information, visit the individual businesses’ websites: Archival Studios, Aged & Faded, Eric’s Objects, Rewind Vintage.

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