New boutique Lady Jones due to open in Vail Village Friday with Bubbles + Bites event

There’s a new boutique in town, and it’s bringing casual, affordable and quality fashion to the Vail Village.

Lady Jones is opening Friday with a Grand Opening Bubbles and Bites party from 5-9 p.m. Shop owner Nicole Schnitzlein spent years living in ski towns after college and wanted to bring a slice of her Denver boutique to the Vail Village. This second location of Lady Jones hopes to find a middle ground in the Vail Valley fashion industry.

“Gosh, there’s just such a divide between this luxury price point in retail in this small boutique world and this quantity-over-quality model. I really sought to fill that void,” she said. “Quality at an attainable price point is what we shoot for.”

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To meet that end, all items in the shop are under $300. Many of the products are American-made, sustainably-made or ethically-sourced. Many of the styles are simple, clean and modern, “with a little bit of an edge,” Schnitzlein added. She also likes to carry a lot of basic, staple pieces that go well with anything.

Schnitzlein first opened the Denver boutique in 2016. After attending college at the University of Vermont, she moved to Vail, intending to take a break from school before taking her LSAT’s and going to law school. Like many others, one season turned into two, then five and on and on. After a few years of skiing in the morning and working retail in the afternoon, she moved to Denver.

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“I lived up here for three years when I first moved out to Colorado, and I actually worked in the same space for a long time,” she said. Lady Jones is currently located in the retail space where she worked fresh out of college.

“I lived in ski towns for so long that I was excited to get somewhere where I could shop,” she said.

While working in ski towns, she discovered that she actually really liked the business side of running a store. She’s always been into fashion, and eventually was able to combine her growing curiosity and her longtime passion into a career as a small business owner.

She named the shop Lady Jones after her husband’s nickname for her and her grandmother’s last name – “her name was Joan Jones, she had the most jewelry out of anyone I’ve ever known before” – and got to work on starting her business. The Denver boutique celebrated three years in business this past October.

The Vail Village location marks the first time Schnitzlein’s taken Lady Jones to a new location. She stocks the store with slightly different items in Vail, especially because many Front Range residents come to ski in the mountains. The overall aesthetic is the same, and many of the brands she carries are the same, but she’s switched it up a little bit to provide some diversity in style between the two locations.

“When I think about opening the first shop, it was like, four months of whirlwind. And then once you open the doors, the next day is just work. I’m trying to slow down and enjoy this part of it, because come Saturday morning, we’re all on the shift,” she said.

The most rewarding part of the past three years in business with Lady Jones has been watching the shop connect to the community and bring people together. She recalls times of old friends running into each other at the shop, sourcing her wedding photographer from a friend who worked in the shop. The photographer had a photo of the Lady Jones logo on her website portfolio and Schnitzlein’s wedding date, Oct. 28, was the same day as the photographer’s birthday. The logo photo now greets customers behind the check-out desk at the Vail store.

“It’s an answer I didn’t expect to come out of it,” she said. “Just getting to know your neighbors: it’s become a really neat network of people.”

If you go …

What: Lady Jones Grand Opening

When: Friday, Nov. 22 5-9 p.m.

Where: Lady Jones, Vail Village

Cost: Free

More information: Giveaways for the first 20 customers, champagne and appetizers provided. For more information, visit ladyjonesdenver.com.