Gems of a different kind are on display at J. Gilbert Footwear in Casas Adobes Plaza this weekend. Scott Wayne Emmerich’s handmade, one-of-a-kind cowboy boots seem better suited to a display case than a barrel race.
It all began 34 years ago on a street in Florida.
“I saw a pair of gray antelope boots crossing the street on a guy. I fell in love with the look, I chased him down, asked him where he got them, he said El Paso, Texas. When I got to El Paso, that was the beginning and the end of it all,” Emmerich says.
Emmerich is now an elder statesman among boot makers, hand designing, tooling and assembling about 600 pairs a year with his team of seven employees. His fully custom signature items, the “Originals by Scott Wayne,” involve clients from the design to the assembly phases, and take months to complete. But, he says, his is a dying art. In the enclave of El Paso where his store, Falconhead, remains, he says there were once 30 like his. Over the years, they have dwindled and died out, and he says now only a handful of stores remain.
“Cowboy boots are not real popular these days,” Emmerich says. “The older folks are getting older, they’re not collecting anymore, their feet hurt or they’re passing on. You got the younger generation, they have no interest.”
His advice as far as handmade boots go? “Get ’em while you can.”
Art of the sole
Emmerich says there are 210 steps in making a simple pair of boots. In a Scott Wayne Original, “hundreds and hundreds.” From concept through design and production, a pair can take five months. “And that’s moving it. That’s rocking,” Emmerich says.
John Gilbert, owner and founder of J. Gilbert Footwear, has known Emmerich for the better part of 30 years. He compares the boots made and shown by Emmerich and his Tres Outlaws Boot Co. to the classic cars at a car show. Boots made for “boot people,” Gilbert says.
With prices beginning at $1,000 for a basic boot, and $5,000 for a Scott Wayne Original, Gilbert and Emmerich agree these are not your everyday clodhoppers.
Who is buying?
Emmerich boasts a client list including Roseanne Barr, Steven Seagal, Reba McEntire, and the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who Emmerich says has ordered about 40 pairs of Originals by Scott Wayne.
Over Friday and Saturday at J. Gilbert, Emmerich says he expects to meet about 100 people and pick up 25 or so new clients. Most of them are not Tucson locals, he says, but people like himself who are in town for the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. Many, says Gilbert, are repeat clients who have been coming to see Emmerich since he began appearing at J. Gilbert in 2012.
A ‘Cinderella’ story
“I don’t do production, I just do custom,” Emmerich says. He estimates of the 600 pairs a year produced, about 70 are the fully custom Scott Wayne Originals.
The rest are what he calls “Cinderellas.”
“I make up a design and a size, and I put ’em out,” Emmerich says. “They’re a certain size, a certain design, and you have to find the right person. They will only fit one person and there will only be one person who has that boot.”
