Melissa Keosann didn’t always know she was a denim whisperer. The 42-year-old worked as a bartender for years before opening Boulder’s LOV’D, which stands for Library of Vintage Denim, in October 2023, and at first, she relied on a tape measure to find her clients’ dimensions. “Then one day, I accidentally buried my tape measure in the jeans that are on this countertop,” Keosann says, pointing to piles of whitewashed, boyfriend, and bootcut styles. Rather than search for that needle in a jean stack, Keosann winged it. “I was like, Wait, I’m actually better at eyeballing it than I am with measuring,” she says.
Now, Keosann can select someone’s dream denim from her stock of roughly 3,000 Levi’s and Wranglers—all of which are at least 20 years old—just by glancing…
