Redneck Boot Sandals - would you wear them? Photo / Redneck Boot Sandals
Redneck Boot Sandals - would you wear them? Photo / Redneck Boot Sandals
Wearing cowboy boots in the blazing summer heat wasn't always the most comfortable choice — until now.
Scotty Franklin, 31, from Springfield, Missouri, has created a shoe style that is a hybrid of cowboy boots and leather flip flops. The unique footwear, which first started as a joke, has since turned into an entire company.
For $150, Scotty's team of professional craftsman will take customers' old or new cowboy boots and turn them into his now famous Redneck Boot Sandals, the DailyMail reports.
Summer is here! Have your custom pair made today at redneckbootsandals.com
Redneck Boot Sandals are cowboy boots on top and flip flops between the toes, and the unique design allows people to wear their favorite Western-style footwear all summer long.
According to his company's website, Scotty was lying on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama in 2012, when he saw a man walking on the sand in cowboys boots.
The entrepreneur had his flip flips sitting right next to him, and he wondered if he could cut his own cowboy boots into a pair of summer shoes.
When he got home, he took his old pair of cowboy boots and used a pocket knife, a drill, and a shoestring to make his first pair of Redneck Boot Sandals.
Scotty's friends thought his shoe design was hilarious, and he sold his first pair to a guy at a party for $150.
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He made another pair, and they sold too. He soon realized there was a market for his hybrid shoe and started a business turning people's cowboy boots into sandals.
In addition to the flip flop-style that goes between the toes, he also makes ones with two sandal straps that go across the width of the foot.
The entrepreneur's business got a boost in 2015 when Pee-wee Herman — actor Paul Reubens' alter ego — shared images of the shoe on Twitter.
Photos of the one-of-a-kind boots went viral that year, and Scotty has been doing interviews about them ever since.
Running Redneck Boot Sandals has become the former sheriff's full-time job, and he receives at least 20 new orders a week.
And while the company was born in Missouri, the Redneck Boot Sandals CEO said the biggest fans of his design hail from Texas.
'Texas being that cowboy "Lone Star" state we get a lot of attention,' he told CW33. 'Texas is number one. We sell to Texas more than any other state.'
The Redneck Boot Sandals on models. Photo / Redneck Boot Sandals
The unusual design is most certainly a conversation starter, but Scotty admitted that there has been some outrage over the fashion monstrosity he created.
'You know, we get some negativity,' he told CNBC. You know, people, I guess, calling it like an abomination to boots, and all this other stuff.
'I mean, the way we look at it is it's something fun and silly and something for people to laugh at and enjoy,' he explained.
For now, Scotty's company is handcrafting the boots that customers send in, but he is looking into mass-producing his boot sandals and selling them in retail stores.
