Why Everyone Is Trying To Find Horse-Inspired Decor At Thrift Stores In 2025

While trends come and go, certain aesthetics and motifs find their way to popularity again and again. Equestrian style, which has enjoyed its heyday at various points during previous decades, is becoming stylish once again. This time around, homeowners are using it to add interest and character to spaces with vintage equestrian accents taking center stage — they're hot commodities in thrift stores, antique venues, estate sales, and flea markets, where you can treasure hunt for equestrian touches at a bargain. Both elevated and rustic in flavor, horses and all their accoutrements are fast becoming a design trend worth noticing, with many designers and homeowners filling spaces with unique accents, genuine antiques, and a tone of shabby but sophisticated old money decor chic.

Thrifting these items can not only be more eco-friendly than buying new, but also more budget-friendly, which is great for décor that may drift in and out of style. Secondhand equestrian items may also have a time-worn beauty of suppleness and patina that new ones do not. Things like old saddles, bits, and equestrian memorabilia can often be found in abundance, particularly in communities with active stables, as children and adults move onto other pursuits beyond riding lessons.

Start with a general plan for your equestrian décor — do you want an obvious connection to the equestrian lifestyle, or do you prefer hints of horses throughout your décor? Options for bringing an equestrian look to your home are many, so it helps to have an idea of how you want to approach the design trend. One option is using genuine horse tack gear, like saddles, stirrups, whips, bits, and saddlebags, that you can add to your walls for a full-on equestrian look. 

Equestrian items typically come in materials like leather, iron, and brass. These elements are often combined with luxe materials, like tweed, suede, plaid flannel, or velvet, to give a formal but rustic feel, even if the pieces are newer. Many homeowners use them with all-neutral spaces in their rustic-inspired home or with rich Ralph Lauren aesthetic shades like olive green, burgundy, or navy blue that complement rich leathers, brass, and dark woods that perfectly capture the old money décor trend. This full equestrian style looks stunning in a space like an office or study to make a room rich with coziness. It would also be lovely in an entryway or dining room.  

If you are starting out your hunt for horse-inspired decor, artwork can be a great place to start, including vintage horse imagery, oil paintings of pasture scenes, veterinary diagrams of horses, or pieces of embroidery with a ranch or western feel. You could also bring in pillows or curtains in equestrian fabrics, vintage children's horse toys, or equestrian-inspired drawer pulls or curtain rod finials.

Equestrian accents complement a number of design styles, including more traditional and vintage-inspired spaces as well as maximalist, grand millennial, farmhouse, and preppy aesthetics, making it easy to bring in thrifted equestrian elements in smaller doses to add interest. Homeowners who want a more subtle nod toward horsemanship, if not actual horses, in their décor might focus on color schemes, like rich browns to mimic leather saddles and deep greens to replicate the fields where horses run and graze. Other great touches include suede or leather furniture, real or faux horse hide rugs, and leather accents on items like trays, vases, and lighting.

Even if your style is eclectic, you can incorporate smaller decorative thrifted pieces when you come across them, like brass horse bookends, old riding trophies and ribbons, and horseshoes, all of which help create a charmingly vintage design scheme whatever your particular aesthetic. Or use an iron horseshoe as a table decoration or hung on a wall.