Boots For Guys

The history of Boots for Guys begins well over a century ago.

The company that became Boots for Guys (Sarl Elodie) was born in 1899, making wooden soled clogs for country people and leather boots for the gentry at a workshop here in the picturesque Vendée region in western France, an area with a long tradition of boot- and shoe-making. It is where we still make our boots today.

In 1922, the owners of the original company were bought by Maximin Gaborit, who had been an employee there for many years. After that, the firm became known as Gaborit Brothers, and under the guidance of the Gaborit family continued making fine leather boots and clogs through the Second World War and the 1950s, with the business passing over time to Maximin's sons Joseph and Edmond - Jean Gaborit's father.

In 1962, after he returned home from serving in the Algerian War, Jean Gaborit - whose name the company now bears - took over the running of the business and led it in a bold new direction, launching a collection of ladies fashion boots called 'Copacabana' as a counterpoint to the mood of austerity that had settled over France in the wake of the war. With plenty of color and avant guard designs, the new collection was an immediate hit, splashing on the covers of fashion magazines and helping usher in the Swinging Sixties in Paris.

Since that time, the company has flourished to become the diverse bootmaker that it is today. We have diverse clientele, ranging from rock stars to Disney's Power Rangers, the iconic Crazy Horse Cabaret in Paris, leading equestrian event riders such as Harry Meade and Jean Lou Bigot, and Tommy Hilfiger's show at the New York Fashion Week. Our authentic reproductions of vintage boots have been worn on period motoring expeditions around the globe, from Indo-China to Baja to the frozen steppes of Siberia on the re-enactment of the 1907 Peking-Paris auto race.

Although, some things have never changed. The Gaborit family is still involved with the company and we still custom make all our boots at our workshop here in the Vendée, in the same village where our story began more than a century ago.