What it’s actually like
Plenty of Old Town shops will put your initials on something. Gorgeous Things, at 7088 East Fifth Avenue near the Marshall Way corner, will put your whole story on it. It is a full custom studio built around patches and embroidery, and its canvas of choice is the denim jacket: pick a vintage or new one from the studio’s selection, or bring your own, and leave with it covered in patches and stitched words that are yours alone. An in-house embroiderer does the work, and the studio’s own tagline, telling your story one stitch at a time, is a fair description.
The business is older than the storefront. Founder Sara, who signs herself the Chief Glitter Officer, started Gorgeous Things in 2017 as a custom studio serving customers across the country, and in 2024 opened this Old Town shop. The room has a playful, glittery confidence: racks of ready-to-wear jackets already finished with the house patches, from bridal and girls-night-out designs to seasonal ones, alongside premium denim, cashmere and cotton sweaters and the basics meant to go underneath.
It is not inexpensive. Finished jackets on the ready-to-wear rack have run from about 250 to 475 dollars, and a full custom build depends on the piece and the work. But it is a jacket, not a trinket, and it is one of the few things you can buy on Fifth Avenue that no one else will ever own.
What to buy
A custom jacket. The reason the studio exists. Choose the jacket, choose the patches, choose the words.
A ready-to-wear jacket. The same handwork, already done, for the visitor with one afternoon.
A brooch or accessory from the brooch bar. The smaller, faster way to take the look home.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
The studio sits on the western stretch of the Fifth Avenue curve, a few steps from the Bronze Horse Fountain at Marshall Way and steps from Sewell’s Indian Arts and Stones Crystal Shop. Use the public garage on the Fifth Avenue side near the canal or the free Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard; the Old Town on foot note maps the walk and the Downtown & 5th Ave guide covers the district.
Plan for time on a custom order. Embroidery is handwork, so ask how long a custom piece will take before you commit, especially if you are flying out on Sunday. The ready-to-wear rack is the same-day option, and in-store pick-up is free if you order online.
Book a patch party for a group. The studio runs Sip, Shop and Stitch events and private parties, which suit a bachelorette weekend or a birthday better than a crowded walk-in. Hours shift by season, so check the website before a special trip.
Eat while you’re there
Berdena’s and Herb Box at 7051 East Fifth are coffee and lunch a short walk west. Citizen Public House along Fifth is the gastropub, and FnB in Craftsman Court is the dinner worth wearing the new jacket to.
How it got here
Fifth Avenue was founded on handwork. The craftsmen who cut the street in 1950, after fire destroyed the Arizona Craftsmen building on Main Street, were silversmiths, weavers, potters and designers; Lloyd Kiva New made hand-screened textiles and handbags under the Kiva name, and in 1955 built the Kiva Craft Center on the avenue. Through the 1950s the street ran Saturday fashion shows for winter tourists. Clothing made by hand, and sold by the people who made it, is part of the street’s original idea.
Customization came back into fashion in the 2010s and 2020s. Mass-produced clothing had made almost everything identical, and a generation of shoppers began paying for the opposite: patches, chain-stitched names, embroidered phrases, vintage denim reworked into something singular. Old Town’s version of the trend shows up in hat bars and charm bars up and down the district; Gorgeous Things took it to the jacket.
Sara founded the studio in 2017 and served customers across the country before putting down roots on Fifth Avenue in 2024. The storefront added what the online studio could not: a rack of finished jackets for walk-in customers, a place for patch parties, and an embroiderer working within sight of the street.
It is a small shop near the Marshall Way corner, among Native jewelers, a crystal shop and a men’s store with a bar in the back. It fits the avenue’s oldest habit, which is selling things that were made by someone, for someone, rather than for everyone.