Sonny’s Vintage Clothing is the brainchild of Dakota Cardosanto, who runs the shop alongside his longtime friend and collaborator Michelle. He and Michelle are vintage enthusiasts and co-hosts of a vintage YouTube series. Dakota himself is deeply entrenched in the vintage world as the founder of The Philly Vintage Flea, having sold to celebrities and collectors and built an extensive network through the market.
After over 15 years spent visiting vintage shops and hosting the YouTube series, the idea for Sonny’s was born, named after Dakota's oldest son. The result is a rotating vintage experience where the selection changes monthly. This rotating-curator model gives Sonny’s the energy that’s hard to find in traditional vintage shops. “My idea was, what if the store changed often?” Dakota explains. Equal parts boutique, collector’s hub, and cultural space, Sonny’s stands out for its inventory and how it is curated.
Sonny’s is unique because of its rotating cast of contributors. “We invite eight different resellers every month,” says Dakota. These aren’t casual consignors. They’re vendors with niche specialties, anywhere from Y2K and 90s sportswear to vintage Finnish soccer kits and rare concert tees. He says, “We invite the best people. They have specialties... some of these guys have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and thriving online businesses.”
With deep connections in the vintage scene, both locally and internationally, he brings in items through a variety of avenues. “With the flea market, I have guys that travel from Japan... Japan’s got a ton of designer items, a whole different dynamic.”
An unexpected way he sources vintage items is through spontaneous conversations with strangers. “If I see a guy with a cool shirt on... I get to talking,” he says. “That’s really fun too, because I get to connect with people.”
Media, with its walkable downtown and style-conscious residents, was a natural fit for the shop. “People in Media are cultured and they’re open... they’re interested in things like fashion and history,” Dakota says. “It’s a young town, it’s happy, it’s thriving.”
While the store is fashion-forward, its philosophy is grounded in history, sustainability, and authenticity. Dakota says that older clothing was often made to last and cherished by its owner, in stark contrast to the fast fashion of today.
One striking example of the shop’s inventory is a varsity jacket from De Rosa Bicycles, a rare 1990s piece with only one other known to exist in a cycling museum in Pasadena. “It’s beautiful. The colors are great aesthetically, fashion-wise it’s awesome,” Dakota says. “The wild thing about this jacket is, nobody was buying a varsity jacket for a bike brand that they liked... It wasn’t like a fashion statement.” It turns out the jacket was custom-made by a group of employees at the bike company, one of whom had once built a bicycle for Steve Jobs. That jacket is now priced at $168, well below what a modern reproduction would cost.
A couple of notable past sales include a Snoop Dogg shirt that fetched $2,500. Another time, a friend found Levi’s in an abandoned Montana home that later sold for $13,000 at The Philly Vintage Flea.
Though the store includes accessories like vintage bags and jewelry, Dakota draws the line at modern designs or non-vintage apparel. "Our customers expect us to deliver vintage clothing.” This dedication to authenticity extends to the store’s in-house validation process, particularly for designer items. “We use the same process that you could pay to authenticate,” Dakota explains.
Looking ahead, Dakota dreams of cultivating a community at Sonny’s. “We’re going to do trade nights,” he says. “So people can come in on a Sunday night and trade t-shirts...” He plans on hosting events, local art features, and hopefully one day, bringing The Philly Vintage Flea to Media’s own State Street.
“Instead of coming in with maybe the thing that I enjoy most, I always like to learn about other collectors’ things,” Dakota says. “And after learning all these different niches... I kind of love it all.”
303 W State St, Media, PA 19063
@SonnysVintageClothing
People like to find what really speaks to them, whether it's the graphic, the cut, or what it stands for.