Casual Takeover
You can’t attend a rodeo these days without spotting an off-duty cowboy in Western-style casual footwear. Make no mistake, boots are mandatory for riding and competition. But for decades, horsemen and –women wore their boots inside the arena and out, perhaps changing into mainstream tennis shoes or flip-flops for driving. Over the last few years, companies such as Twisted X have carved a spot for comfortable shoes that still make sense for the Western lifestyle. Twisted X owner and founder Bob Frazier explains:
“During a time when boot sales have slowed,” Frazier says “more and more competitors are snapping up new styles of his company’s casual footwear in moccasin, chukka and loafer styles.”
“Customers find them comfortable and easy to wear, especially for driving, which includes a lot of rodeo riders pulling horses in trailers,” Frazier said. “In the last several years, these shoes have become acceptable cowboy footwear—you can wear them with jeans and a hat.”
The shoes are now so popular, Frazier says he sees them everywhere at rodeos. “We stay at the MGM [in Las Vegas] and that’s where a lot of the PRCA cowboys stay for the NFR,” Frazier said. “I see cowboy competitors walking all over the NFR wearing our shoes.”
Frazier says the coloration and style of the shoes are what helped kick them into rotation for serious horse people. “The big seller is a sort of brown, chukka-type desert boot upper—it was actually our first style,” Frazier said of the Bomber Driving Moccasin style MDM0003. “When I was in college, I rodeoed, and everybody had those desert boots, but Western stores didn’t carry them.”
The price point of casual shoes is lower than a nice pair of boots, so that makes them attractive because you can collect several pairs to match different outfits or accessories without breaking the bank.
“Rather than going out and spending $250 or $300 on a boot, our customers can get our shoes and then save their boots for the arena or the honkey-tonk,” Frazier said. “I think the main thing is comfort, fit, they’re affordable and they’re acceptable now—and we still have the nice traditional boot colorations.”
While the original style is a perennial favorite, Frazier says bright colors, new patterns on older styles, new styled and fresh details like buck stitching and saddle stitching keep things interesting for customers that want to update their wardrobes.
Frazier says his team sometimes gets inspiration for Twisted X designs from customers themselves.
“At the Working Ranch Cowboy [Association National] Finals a couple of years ago in Amarillo, a younger competitor came into our retailer’s booth, and he had buck-stitched his driving moccasins with bright orange, and added matching laces—this was before we’d ever done color on our shoes,” Frazier said. “I said ‘we’ve gotta do this.’ That kind of inspiration happens every once in a while.”
“At the Working Ranch Cowboy [Association National] Finals a couple of years ago in Amarillo, a younger competitor came into our retailer’s booth, and he had buck-stitched his driving moccasins with bright orange, and added matching laces—this was before we’d ever done color on our shoes,” Frazier said. “I said ‘we’ve gotta do this.’ That kind of inspiration happens every once in a while.”
While the original style is a perennial favorite, Frazier says bright colors, new patterns on older styles, new styled and fresh details like buck stitching and saddle stitching keep things interesting for customers that want to update their wardrobes.
Frazier says his team sometimes gets inspiration for Twisted X designs from customers themselves.
