When Will Roman’s back began to ache as he got older, he faced a dilemma familiar to many Texans: he refused to give up his cowboy boots. Instead of accepting the trade-off between style and comfort, Roman set out to find a solution. After testing countless brands and inserts, he found that most boots either supported one area while aggravating another. This frustration led to the creation of Chisos Boot Company in 2019, an Austin-based, family-owned bootmaker that approaches comfort as an integrated system rather than an afterthought.
The cornerstone of Chisos’s design is its proprietary removable comfort insole, which combines a leather top layer with a multi-density polymer base and impact-dissipating gel pads at the heel and ball of the foot. Roman spent months rejecting materials like memory foam, which loses its rebound after prolonged standing. The result is an insole that maintains support throughout the day while still molding to the wearer’s foot like a traditional leather insole. “There is not another insole on the market like this,” Roman said.
But the insole is only part of the story. Chisos builds every boot with the comfort system in mind, starting with a last that runs larger and a taller heel counter. The vegetable-tanned leather footbed provides structured arch support, backed by a conformed steel shank. The heel counter, also made of firm vegetable-tanned leather rather than plastic or fiberboard, cradles the heel and stiffens as the boot breaks in.
Chisos emphasizes stability over extreme softness, arguing that overly cushioned footwear can lead to poor posture and gait compensations. The company prioritizes a stable platform with a firm heel counter, structured footbed, and a walking heel with moderate lift—about an inch and a half—to promote natural arch support and walking stability. A wider toe box, seen in styles like the No. 2, allows toes to spread and maintain balance.
On hard surfaces, traditional leather boots can transfer impact up the body, but the comfort insole absorbs shock without sacrificing the resolable leather construction. “Changing your boots out is probably not going to solve back discomfort overnight,” Roman said. “But it can make a big difference. It worked for me, and I hear from customers every week about how switching to a pair of Chisos has enabled them to wear boots again.”
While footwear cannot treat medical conditions like sciatica, Chisos aims to provide day-to-day comfort through stability, posture support, and impact management for those who spend long hours on their feet.
As the boots break in, the foot forms indentations in both the comfort insole and the leather footbed beneath, reducing micro-movements needed for balance. The boots are designed to improve with wear, not peak on day one. Cross-section videos on the company’s YouTube channel showcase the interior construction: stacked leather heel, leather heel counter, and channel-welted construction, revealing what’s hidden inside.
Chisos boots are available at chisos.com and at Chisos HQ in Austin, Texas. The company, named for the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, builds small-batch, hand-lasted boots using traditional Goodyear welt construction and vegetable-tanned leather. A portion of every sale supports Texas land conservation.
