Alan Bell

Abilene, Texas, USA-based maker of cowboy boots

learned under saddlemaker Bill Barton

apprenticed with Tex Robin

opened Bell Custom Made Boots in 1977

friends with James Leddy

Media

• Shoptalk! “Laughs and Lasts at Bell Custom Made Boots”
  • biography

  • “All the old-timers always told me this when I was startin’ out: ‘Don’t count how many orders you make till you get out of the business because that’s bad luck.’

  • on prices:

    “Like the old bootmaker told me one time, ‘That’s where friendship ceases.’”

  • Alan Bell copyrights all his patterns

  • “The more people you have workin’ on that boot, the less quality you’re gonna have.”

  • measuring
    • insists on measuring feet himself

    • “a fit to one person is not necessarily a fit to another.”

    • “That’s what makes it so important to me that the person who measures that person’s feet, also does the last.”

    • pickin’ their brain

    • “Two things you’ve gotta measure, and that’s their feet and their head.”