For his 16th birthday, Blake Kobelan's father gave him a pair of cowboy boots from Texas Traditions, one of America's most renowned custom bootmakers. On a sunny December morning in Austin, after nearly four years on the waiting list, the time had come to make some styling decisions. Mr Kobelan discusses the matter with Carrlyn Miller, who runs the shop with her husband Lee. Ostrich and kangaroo, they think; black, with a white state of Texas on the front; flags on the pull-straps. The office is stuffed with handmade boots created down the decades, some simply stitched, others worked with elaborate designs of wild flowers, birds, or barbed wire.
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