Wes Shugart says there are 350 steps that go into making a cowboy boot.
On a rainy fall morning, he sits on a low stool before his work bench, hammering leather into a boot sole. This is just one of those steps.
Shugart is the award-winning owner of Music City Leather in Brentwood. With rolls of leather and suede lining the walls, his studio melds that clean smell of leather with the palo santo incense he burns throughout the day. This is where he makes custom cowboy boots to order.
“I take eight measurements of your feet, and I build the boot to fit your foot perfectly,” he says. “You pick your leather, you pick your design. I make them the way they were made in the late 1800s, the early 1900s. I make them by hand.”
That process includes cutting and shaping the leather, crafting intricate design-work, and stitching the pieces together using a single-needle sewing machine from 1931 he calls “Edith.”
It’s a time-intensive craft, with a single pair taking anywhere from 30 to 100 hours to make. And his pricing reflects that; a pair of boots from Music City Leather starts at around $2,500.
Courtesy of Wes Shugart Wes Shugart takes measurements for a custom pair of boots.
“You can make a boot a lot faster. You can make a boot a lot cheaper. But the custom makers, we want to stay true to our roots,” Shugart says, “And we have found that the only way to do that is to do it by hand, so we can check every single step. Most of us makers only make a couple of pairs a month.”
Shugart believes in traditional construction. He makes stylish boots for office workers and businesspeople, but he also makes boots for genuine cowboys.
“A cowboy boot is a tool,” he says. “It’s like their hat, their horse, their saddle, their rope. Without the proper boot, the proper-fitting boot, or a strong, long-lasting boot, they can’t do their job. It almost becomes dangerous to them to have a big boot that doesn’t fit, to try to stay in the saddle chasing calves.”
And he knows what he’s talking about. He grew up on a cattle farm in Georgia, so he’s been wearing cowboy boots practically since birth. But it wasn’t until his 40s that he decided to start making them himself. He went out West and apprenticed under a third-generation bootmaker in New Mexico. In 2012, he opened Music City Leather, and he’s been at it ever since.
Wes Shugart This is a pair that belongs to Shugart himself. Cranberry red pigskin with electric blue alligator foxing.
“I think it’s also a calling,” he says. “It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. When you become a custom maker, you pretty much decide that you are going to be a functional artist.”
Shugart’s boots are a form of functional art. Each design choice is made for both style and function.
“In the grand scheme of a cowboy boot, everything about it is meant to do something.” He adds, “The cowboy boot embodies, kind of, the freedom and the feeling of adventure that America likes to be known for.”
And that feeling of adventure? It means westward expansion, freedom of movement, self-reliance – and of course, looking good while you do it.
The designs, the leather, the heel height and scalloping… “All these things come together to really create your style,” Shugart says. “I don’t deal in fashion. I deal in personal style.”
A cowboy boot, Shugart says, “Should look like a flower, where it roots you to the ground, but you feel like you’re lifted up. You feel powerful.”
This story first aired in Wednesday’s episode of This Is Nashville, which you can listen to here.
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