A vintage watch and jewelry shop called D’Dahlia had its soft opening on Nov. 1 at 219 E. San Antonio Ave. in Downtown El Paso, giving owner Dalia Hernandez her first permanent storefront after more than a year of popping up around the city. The shop sells vintage watches and jewelry out of a shared retail space that has been steadily filling in since the summer.
D’Dahlia’s new home is The Exchange, the multi-business space that El Paso Inc. reports opened in June 2026. The building at 219 E. San Antonio was opened by Patrick McNeil and Josh Mendoza, according to a separate El Paso Inc. report, with the founders aiming to bring different businesses, interests and communities together under one roof.
Hernandez spent more than a year hosting pop-ups around El Paso before landing the storefront, per the El Paso Inc. report. That stretch of pop-up sales apparently built enough of a following to support a standing shop in one of downtown’s newer retail hubs.
A Growing Roster Inside The Exchange
D’Dahlia joins a lineup of businesses that have been part of The Exchange since it opened, including Breakroom Coffee, Case Hits Comics, Case Hits Downtown and Reused EP, the article notes. The mix reflects the founders’ original pitch for the space: a single roof housing coffee, comics, resale goods and now vintage timepieces and jewelry.
The Exchange had been working to fill its remaining storefronts for months. Earlier El Paso Inc. coverage reported that a new tenant specializing in watches was expected to fill the last remaining storefront in September, though that earlier report did not name the tenant.
Riding a National Vintage Wave
D’Dahlia’s debut lands amid a broader surge in resale and vintage shopping. A Boston Consulting Group and Vestiaire Collective study cited by El Paso Inc. valued the worldwide apparel and accessory resale market at $100 billion to $120 billion, more than three times its size in 2020.
El Paso has its own track record with that trend. Downtown’s THRFT Store Vintage opened in May 2018, and its owners have said sales grew each year as El Pasoans learned more about vintage clothing and followed fashion trends, according to El Paso Inc. Patrick McNeil, who later co-founded The Exchange, told the publication the vintage trend really started around 2017 but then shirts that used to go for $250 started going for $2,000.
The article on D’Dahlia’s soft opening was written by Leah Anderski for El Paso Inc.’s Openings & Closings section, with accompanying photography also credited to Anderski.
