These Cult-Favorite Cowboy Boots Just Got a Lot Easier to Buy

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Zephan Parker may be a Houston boy, but given his path into the world of Westernwear, he might as well have been born in Brooklyn. As a young man, “I was into graffiti, hip hop, and Ralph Lauren,” he explains. This was right around the time that Ralph’s cultural impact was getting flipped by folks like the Lo Life crew, transforming preppy clothing into a streetwear staple. A graffiti artist himself, Parker’s fascination with that side of the brand eventually led him back through Ralph’s long list of influences—first to classic Americana and then, eventually, to Western styles.

Granted, he was primed for the journey. His dad’s a musician. His mother’s side of the family has a long cowboy lineage. So when he grew up, got married, had three kids, and moved to central Texas for a job in the works department of a small military town, it wasn’t exactly strange that he found himself shopping around for custom cowboy boots for himself. What was unusual—or at the very least unexpected—was taking that interest and turning it into a career.

After meeting the owners of the Jass Boot Shop in Lampasas, Parker says, he “chased a boot rabbit. Like a hound, I chased a boot rabbit, and I haven’t let up since.” The owners at Jass had studied under Ray Jones, a cowboy boot legend if there ever was one. “He was a gritty, southern Texas gentleman,” Parker explains. “It just inspired me as an artist. I thought, ‘There’s something here in American craftsmanship that an entrepreneur needs to be involved in.’”

He began an apprenticeship at Jass in 2011, then traveled to Kimmel Boot Company before returning to Houston with his family in 2014 to start his own operation. Parker Boot Company was conceived as “a company founded on a resurgence of American Made, a resurgence of American craftsmanship, a resurgence of true bespoke,” he explains. “Not something made with 95 machines and a human’s just there punching a button on a screen. I wanted to focus on the traditional, historical methods and the purity—we call it ‘pure bespoke’—of the artisanship and the craftsmanship.”

With a dearth of specialty footwear artisans and craftspeople, Parker leans on other industries, transferring skills from one type of creative output to another. He’s tapped tailors to come cut leather for him, for instance, and his team is comprised “almost entirely of first-generation makers.” As they progress, they can train new folks, much like the guys at Jass and Kimmel trained Parker himself.

The brand quickly found a following. The “modern cowboy,” as Parker calls his customer, could be anyone from a businessman to a lawyer to a doctor or even a style blogger. The key is that they appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into a pair of bespoke boots—and like to tell their friends about it.

“In a craft trade, if you do something well and people believe in your product, they’ll beat your door down with everyone they know to show them about it,” Parker says. “We’ve been word of mouth for ten years. Our clients have decided that we were important enough to bring others in here to share their world.”

Now, for the first time, Parker Boot Company is moving beyond that model. This week, the brand is introducing a made-to-order program that takes the greatest hits of Parker’s career as a bootmaker and distills them down into a tightly edited range of boots that don’t require the time (often measured in months) and expense (we’re talking around four grand) of going through the entire bespoke process. Instead, you’ll wait about four to six weeks for production, and pay between $995 and $1,695.

There are two core models: the Caldwell and the Kent. The former—a true cowboy boot with a higher, angled heel—is named for Parker’s mother. You can get it with a block toe inspired by styles from the ‘40s or the classic rounded toe that came to prominence in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The latter is a roper with a low, flat heel. It’s named for Parker’s father, who “wasn’t worried about flash.” While the Caldwell delivers the undiluted cowboy vibes, the Kent, Parker says, is “an easy graduation” into the world of Westernwear.

Whichever style you choose, though, Parker is adamant that it’s a lot easier to wear than you might expect. He’s met more than a few guys who feel that wearing cowboy boots means putting on the equivalent of a cowboy costume each day. That, he says, is a mistake.

“The boot is a part of your wardrobe, not an obligation on your life—not an obligation on who you have to be to wear it,” he explains. “When we put on a boot, we have to interpret it the same way we’d interpret a running shoe or a loafer or anything else. We put it on, see how it feels, and go for it.” Tailored clothing, Parker says, is a great complement to a cowboy boots, as is pretty much anything other than skinny jeans.

No matter what you wear, though, you should prepare for a confidence bost. “There’s an old saying among bootmakers,” he says. “’It adds inches to your height, but yards to your stature.’”

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