Tag Archives: SXSW

Cowboy Boots, Featured Bootshops, Vintage Boots

Texas Custom Boots (Austin, TX)

Texas Custom Boots is truly a full-service boot shop.

Noel Escobar will be happy to make you a brand new handmade customfit cowboy boot. He is happy to sell you one of his vintage boots. He will also take your broken-down chewed-up vintage factory boots and restore them to wearable condition.

Noel has more patience and expertise for restoring worn and vintage cowboy boots than anyone I know. Noel will strengthen boot tops with new linings. He’ll relast boots… sometimes adding a wingtip or foxing as an attractive repair. He’ll resole & polish. Click through to the end of the photos to see what can only be called “extreme makeovers.”

Also, Texas Custom Boots adjoins Martinez Brothers Taxidermy, which makes for some great pictures. Come for the boots, stay for the BBQ.

Cowboy Boots

Cowboy Boots at Allens (Austin, TX)

I walk into Allens Boots and ask if it’s okay to take some photos.

Steve says… “Sure, do you want a ladder?”

“Really? I can have a ladder? Oh, yeah…gimme a ladder.”

Which begs the question, “How many boots are there in Allens Boots?” When I asked Steve, he guessed 4,000. But no, the fella in the back with computer and the keyboard (whose job it is to keep count) says… 7,248. Wow… walk into Allens Boots and all the odds are in your favor. Lots of makers, styles and sizes.

With rows and rows of boots, it gets easy to see what’s popular. Lucchese, Old Gringo, Frye, Justin, Tony Lama and Sendra. The girls like all sorts of punchy colors… and the boys in Austin, go for the “car repair” colors… distressed, black, gray and greenish browns leathers. Cowboy boots to match the stuff that drips outa your pickup… to match your scraped knuckles.