Chisos Boot Company is releasing a new run of the Chisos Reserve: Anniversary Edition, a small-batch cowboy boot built from wild-harvested Texas alligator. The release, timed ahead of rodeo season, marks one of the few windows each year when the company offers its rarest boot. The boot, which retails for $4,950, is a statement of the family-owned Austin house's place in the luxury bootmaking market.
The cowboy boot market divides into three tiers: work boots stamped out on automated lines, fast-fashion mass-production western labels like Tecovas, and bench-made heritage makers who build one pair at a time by hand. Chisos competes in the top tier on construction and materials. The Anniversary Edition is proof of that commitment.
Each pair is mirror-cut from royal black alligator belly, wild-harvested from the waters of East Texas. Several hides were hunted personally by founder Will Roman. No two pairs are alike, as each hide carries a signature as distinct as a fingerprint. Wild alligator is dense and unruly, requiring master bootmakers in Guanajuato to meet Chisos's tolerances. The collar features a hand-tooled, hand-dyed relief of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park. Heels are stamped with the shape of Texas, and each pair bears the "Chisos Reserve" interior emblem.
First released in 2020, the Anniversary Edition remains the only small-batch cowboy boot exclusively made from wild Texas alligator. The harvest is a conservation model, regulated to give Texas landowners a financial reason to protect wetlands. The project is certified by the nonprofit Texan by Nature. "Landowners are key to protecting alligator breeding habitat," Roman said. "Using the leather as a model for financing conservation is the reason these animals were able to flourish again."
The Anniversary Edition sits at the top of a deliberate exotic range. Its entry point is the Chisos No. 7 Lizard, a black-lizard suit boot retailing for $945, with other exotics at $1,295. Both boots are built on the same foundation: bench-made, Goodyear-welted, with a stacked leather heel and veg-tanned sole. The construction includes a double-thick vegetable-tanned leather heel counter, 10-to-11-iron center-cut veg-tanned outsole and midsole, and a leather rand. Soles are set with lemonwood pegs and brass nails. A steel shank provides arch support, and the interior is fully lined in leather.
Every Chisos boot is built to be repaired and rebuilt. The Goodyear welt construction allows the sole to be replaced as needed. A removable comfort insole, topped with heritage leather over semi-organic polymer with gel pads, adds modern engineering. "We build the way bootmakers built a century ago, because that is what this caliber of boot demands," Roman said. "A Chisos boot is meant to be the last pair a man buys, and the first thing his son inherits."
Chisos is a family-owned luxury cowboy boot company based in Austin, Texas, founded in 2019 by Will Roman. The company builds bench-made heritage boots in small batches using traditional methods. A portion of every sale supports Texas land conservation. Learn more at https://chisos.com.
