Umba

I found Umba accidentally yesterday — walked by and my eye was caught by the SO very cool gypsy clothing on the mannequins. Being of the hippie generation myself, I adore gypsy styles, and often can only find things I really like in Nepali — type import stores (which often means lots of looking, and ending up with stuff that’s pretty but poorly made or shrinks into infinity when washed.) Even at first glance, this clothing looked solid.
I walked into the shop and stopped dead, blown away by the preponderance of beautiful items of all sorts. Festival? Goth? Steampunk? Tolkien? 1960’s retro? New Age? Rock concert performance gear? It’s all there. Colors and styles galore. Excellent quality, too. And the attention to design detail is simply amazing. The prices are not cheap, but they are fair; one should not expect to pay pennies for such excellent merchandise. This is the stuff you mean when you say «I’d rather have one item from X than 10 from Y.» Umba is X, without a doubt.
I was the only person in the shop. The girl staffing the store welcomed me warmly, and told me the story of the store. It gets better! This is an artist’s co-​op, with quite a lot of the merch made locally right here in Boulder. I love buying local, so that’s a big plus. And it’s not just clothing; there’s all sorts of accessories like locally made jewelry (including some superb wire-​wrapping), purses, hats, and most extraordinarily, the absolutely coolest belts I have ever seen anywhere. And they stock and sell art pieces as well, also from local artists. In fact, I purchased a beautiful print of a piece done by the salesgirl herself (Ananda), a talented artist in her own right.
When other customers entered the shop, Ananda managed to take care of us all and make us all feel warmly welcome. I purchased a winter coat unlike any I’d ever seen — lacing down the back, Renaissance style, form-​fitting black felt longer in the back — comfortable and beautiful. I have my eye on a belt and a couple of Tolkien-​esque pieces for the next time I have a little extra to spend on my wardrobe.
A final note: soooo many stores that carry «hippie» merchandise burn incense constantly. I like incense just fine, but I have a sensitive nose and too much gives me a headache. I was delighted that this store was perfume-​free. It truly didn’t need any more sensory stimulation than the merchandise itself provided!
You must check it out if you like styles like this at all — and guys, bring your girlfriends!

Amazing clothing. Great fits, fabrics, colors, and screen printed patterns/​designs on their clothing. As soon as I walked in the store I knew I would want to buy everything in every cut, and every color. Everything I tried on fit amazing and felt amazing, although I know I’m going to want to hand wash everything so that might not be super awesome but, all of the clothes are really well-​made and the fabric is just so soft.
All of the clothing I picked fit me great and then when I went to the counter to check out the woman gave me discounts on everything because I was buying so much. I still spent well over $ 200 on clothes but I think that the fabric is going to be really great and I’m going to want to wear the clothing all the time. I didn’t buy one, but they have a really really really great selection of utility belts leather and otherwise. Utility belts look really cute and they’re really well priced.
Overall some of the clothes are a tad bit expensive, but everything is really freely and soft and pretty and all the colors go really really well together so you can mix-​and-​match almost everything in the store. It’s also really cool that they sell individual people’s goods and local artists crafts.
I will be back here many many many times in the future.

I love this store! The staff has always been very helpful and made me feel welcome! They have a great variety of clothes, jewelry and art. I love that so many things are locally made too! They are great place in visit while in Boulder!

This store is so eclectic and rad! The staff is super sweet and they stayed after hours to help me out with choosing feathers. I definitely recommend this place!

Based on the one other review for this store, I see that costumer service has not improved in the year and a half since the previous reviewer’s experience. Rather, I would say that it has gone downhill. A friend of mine had a super sexy jumper that she purchased at Umba about 8 months ago. I was going to Boulder for an event and called that morning to see if they still had the jumpers. I was told by a pretty friendly staff person that they did, in fact, have two of these left. She then mentioned that both had minor defects, she explained what they were, and offered me a 25% discount on either if I still wanted to purchase them. I thought this was pretty reasonable considering I feel that some of their items are a tad overpriced as it is. I was running late for setting up for the event and was unable to stop by the store on Saturday. Since I was staying in Boudler, I opted to just go on Sunday. When I got there, I asked the staff member, whose name was Kara, about the two items and another client (who was trying them on) gave them to me to check out. One was blue and one was brown. Both defects seemed to be pretty simple, and I liked the brown one better. This one had a hole, albeit small, in the seam near the front. It appeared to be where they had put the tag on the outfit at one point. When I took it up to the counter, Kara was on the phone on whjat was very obviously a personal call. I sat there for a minute before she acknowledged me. It wasn’t until I brought up the discount promised the previous day that she even put the phone down. She then offered me a 5 dollar discount, to which I replied that I had been told I would recieve a 25% discount. She balked and said that there was no way she could do that, that the hole was a simple one stitch, and that she couldn’t understand why the staff member had said this. When I mentioned that if I had been able to come in the previous day, the discount would have been honored, she said «well, than you should have come in.» Wow. I was tired of arguing with her when she finally offered a 12 dollar discount (the promised had been about 16) and paid and left. I agree that the hole was small, and that it probably will be fixed with a few stitches. However, in my experience working retail and in costumer service… you live by the principle that the customer is always right. Even if she didn’t agree with the discount promised, she should have honored it as it was told to me by her staff. Oh yes, this rude woman was the owner of the shop. And yes, then maybe she needed to follow up with this staff person about what sorts of discounts are given for defective items. But this, as her customer, is not my problem. I will not return to this store. I can easily find a lot of this stuff on etsy if I want to, and can guarantee I will have a more pleasant experience there.

Feathers are pretty rad, and they also make some pretty killer earrings. However, the staff is BEYOND rude. After sending numerous friends, visitors, myself tons of times, and clients (I’m a hair dresser) to Umba, I have given up on giving them my, or even my client’s support. I am super laid back, always asking them to use their creativity to make something awesome, and am always thankful for their time. THEY just seem like I am an innconvenience, that they have to step away from their lap top. It’s pretty awful. Luckily, I have found another girl to do my feathers, and she is super sweet! SUCH a bummer though, as they once had a great staff, and it’s so close to my work :(