By Anelia K. Dimitrova
Build it and they will come.
And come they did to the College Square Mall on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, for the Cedar Falls debut of Iowa Vintage Fest, a pop-up marketplace for vintage fans.
It was the first event of the year for Square One Vintage, the downtown Cedar Falls business co-owned by Evan Suchomel and Damien Klein, both UNI grads. They had planned the event in collaboration with Illinois Vintage Fest and for the duration that day, thanks to their efforts, the mall hosted 50 vendors from Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The usually dormant mall vibed with curiosity, color and a quest for connecting with generations across time through the history of curated clothing and jewelry, among others.
The gloomy end of February and the cold outside, too, made the vibrant event feel even more needed and therapeutic.
The hopping mood generated by the shoppers stood in stark contrast with the vacant store spaces in the mall. With the buzz of unending amusement from random discoveries of a shirt or a jacket or a set of earrings that found a new owner, the mall was like a bird convention with chirps of joy coming from every direction. Young and old and everyone in between enjoyed the fest. While their parents shopped, some toddlers watched the crowd perched on parental shoulders, others stared at the scene from strollers while older kids jumped around the mall fountain where pennies were tossed for good luck, as the tradition goes.
At the food court, fest-goers gobbled up pizza or Indian dishes. Specialty drinks and sweet delight came from Moo’s Bakery, a College Hill staple, which had its tent at the west end of the building.
Among the shoppers were Ella Schipper, a December UNI graduate in marketing and communication, and her friend, Kaylyn Davis, who studies early childhood education
“I just love seeing the different things,” Schipper told me. “You get a little bit of everything, all the vintage jackets, and feeling like they’ve had a life before this, and I just like seeing the story behind everything.”
Davis echoed the sentiment.
“I love when there’s events like this in Cedar Falls where it brings the whole community and I know the mall has been slowing down in activity in the past few years, so it’s just exciting to see something actually bringing in a crowd like this.
The fest was just as exciting for vendors and some of them stood on stools above the crowd to be able to observe better the beehive around them.
One of the vendors, Jacob Trojnacki, of Illinois-based Elgin Vintage, beamed a charismatic smile as he watched shoppers go through his inventory.
“I like the community, there’s a lot of good people in the business,” he said. “I love coming to these events. I have a lot of friends here, so I get to see them all. I don’t get to see them very often.
Among the vendors was Devin Brunner. He started sourcing clothing last year, he told me, and the fest was his first event as a business owner.
“I am having a lot of fun meeting people, seeing a lot of different outfits, getting people into vintage.”
Jim Day, who has lived across the mall for 60 years, said he was surprised at the number of people the event attracted.
“I’ve never seen this many people in the mall,” Day, a retired speech therapist, told me.
