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Cowboy Boots: From The King Ranch To The Runway
By: Mari Davis
DALLAS, Jul 7, 2003/ FW/ --- From Britney Spears to Tom Cruise, from the King Ranch to
Hollywood, America's love affair with the cowboy boots is well documented.
Thanks to fashion designers, this aphrodisiac is being exported all over the world,
via the catwalk. And the latest round was during the European menswear season, where
the cowboy was king and his boots were his best ally.
What is it with cowboy boots that even Hollywood - from John Wayne, to Brad Pitt, to
Mark Damon - deem it is important to highlight in films?
According to Tyler Beard, author of
"Art of the Boot", "Boots from the dawn of high-heeled footwear have always evoked a certain sensual
connotation that extends to sexuality."
In "Legends of The Fall", Brad Pitt plays Tristan the rebellious middle son of a fiercely
independent Montana rancher. In the film, 'Tristan' wore cowboy boots almost the whole time, even
when he went to fight World War I.
Tyler Beard called the boots as the "soul" of the American cowboy. In "Legends of the Fall",
the cowboy boots is an 'extension' of Brad Pitt's Tristan. Without it, the character will
be incomplete.
One of the best portrayal of the boots as the 'soul' of the American cowboy is in
Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel, 'All the Pretty Horses' which was adapted into a
film with the same title starring Matt Damon.
Matt Damon plays John Grady Cole, a dispossessed Texas rancher who ventures to Mexico in
1949 to revive his fading dreams of cowboy glory.
Along the way, Cole and his friend Lacey Rawlins (played by Henry Thomas) meet a
gunslinging teenager (played by Lucas Black) who lost his horse, his clothes and his guns,
but kept his boots on!
Hollywood, without meaning to, is the biggest proponent of the cowboy boots, to the point
that the final and fourth style of the evolution of the western boots is named Hollywood
or 'tejas'.
'Tejas' is the Spanish form of Texas. In fact, before Texas became a republic and was under
Mexico and in turn Spain, its name was Tejas, meaning peace.
This little piece of historical information explains why the cowboys are usually associated
with Texas, though the whole of the American west has cowboys from Montana, to Colorado,
Kansas, New Mexico and California to name a few.
Maybe, one of the reasons why the Texas cowboy is dominant in terms of recognition is
due to the King Ranch, one of the biggest working ranches in the world.
Founded in 1853 by Captain Richard King, King Ranch sprawls across 825,000 acres of
South Texas. Covering almost 1,300 square miles, it is larger than the entire state of Rhode
Island. It is the home of 60,000 heads of cattle and 300 quarter horses.
Cattle ranching in the United States existed as early as 1767, when Indians and
Mexicans on horseback were engaged by Franciscan missionaries to work cattle in
California.
In Texas, cattle ranching began around 1820. Yet the legendary cowboy and his lifestyle did
not set roots until the spring of 1867.
Yet, the cowboy boots existed long before that and traces its roots all the way back to
third century England and France.
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