This is, after all, the West

Leila Navidi

Kristin Davis tries on boots at the nation’s largest Boot Barn, on Las Vegas Boulevard South, housing 17,000 pairs, in a wide range of shapes, sizes and colors.

By Brian Eckhouse

Friday, Feb. 13, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Finding the inner cowpoke

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Once entirely utilitarian and dating back to at least the fifth century, the cowboy boot has evolved: It’s part work boot, part George Strait and almost all statement. And it remains a mystery to me and other Northeast natives.

Are there cowboys in Las Vegas? Would boots make me a cowboy? Would I have to learn how to lasso?

I had perceived Las Vegas as a sort of condensed New Jersey in the desert, far from the cowboy town of its youth. XS nightclub, not Kiel Ranch.

Well, Las Vegas is not a cow town. It’s a valley of rhinestones and neon.

But it’s also where Hollywood meets the Old West and the MTV Video Music Awards meet the National Finals Rodeo. And the nation’s largest Boot Barn is just down Las Vegas Boulevard South from a casino with an equestrian ring. And there’s a feed store down the street.

At Boot Barn, I would look for my inner cowboy. Or at least find a pair of boots to get me on the right trail.

For the non-cowboy, Boot Barn is a confounding crush of boots — 17,000 pairs — stacked in rows differentiated mostly by size, stretching the better part of a football field. So large is the collection that a cowgirl-employee implores me to take both boots in a pair when I try them on, to prevent strays. “We end up chasing boots,” she explains. Maybe at closing time they saddle up for a boot roundup.

There are pimply ostrich boots; slick, spiraling eel boots; scaly-looking python boots; power-gator boots; 18-inch-high boots as shiny as tuxedos, with ankle buckles; work boots; hiking boots.

There are boots with different colors, different stitching, pointy toes, round toes, square toes, different widths and various shafts. And I’m a guy who gets flummoxed over black loafers.

“We get a lot of people like you coming to us and asking, ‘Dress me up,’ ” assistant manager Darwin Trotter tells me. “Not just at Halloween, but it is seasonal. And we get a lot of Europeans heading down to Stoney’s,” the rockin’ country bar.

On this day, most of the customers are regulars: cowboys in Wranglers and flannel or denim button-downs; teens in muscle shirts and tight jeans; and a lot of blue-collar workers.

They all seem to know what kind of heels they want. I didn’t know until today I had a choice.

A salesman — his nametag says Ernesto — tells me new boots should be tight around the toe and loose in the back. Otherwise, they’re too small. I slip on a pair. And then I slide across the floor. What, cowboy boots have leather soles?

“Ya gotta scuff ’em up,” Ernesto explains.

I try on a pair of black cowhide boots that, in the floor mirror, would seem more appropriate on Darth Vader than Wyatt Earp.

I find my favorite pair: white gator boots with black-shaded scales. The Luchese boots are less Texas and more Aldo. But they’re $750.

So now I aspire to be a wealthy cowboy.