A Boot Collector Feature
A women-owned Santa Fe bootmaker that's spent over three decades proving handmade cowboy boots and fashion-forward design aren't opposites.
Wendy Lane Henry founded Back at the Ranch in 1990, bringing a background in New York fashion design into a cowboy boot business at a time when the industry was overwhelmingly male-owned. The Santa Fe shop built a reputation on handmade construction paired with a willingness to push Western boot design somewhere more fashion-forward — exotic skins like ostrich and crocodile, elaborate tooling, and custom orders built to a customer's own specifications. The business is now transitioning to a third generation: Wendy's granddaughter, Jackie Hopper Daru, moved to Santa Fe to learn the trade and is positioned to eventually take over, bringing outside experience from the technology industry to help modernize operations while keeping the bench-made craftsmanship that built the brand's name.
Being described as "one of the last remaining makers of handmade cowboy boots" in an industry increasingly dominated by overseas manufacturing — and for doing it with a fashion sensibility that's drawn attention well outside the usual Western-wear press, including a feature in Forbes on Henry's approach to reinventing the cowboy boot.
A Santa Fe institution — 35-plus years of proving handmade and fashionable aren't opposites.
Pairs from smaller, custom, or long-closed makers rarely come up for sale, so this search may not find anything. It’s worth checking back now and then.