M.L. Leddy's recently made The New York Times' list of the top 50 clothing stores in the US. (Josu Ozkaritz/Shutterstock).
M.L. Leddy’s, a Texas staple for over 100 years, recently made the New York Times list of 50 Best Clothing Stores in America. Here’s what you need to know.
One of DFW’s very own boot shops, M.L. Leddy’s, earned a spot on the New York Times’ 50 Best Clothing Stores in America list. The stores aren’t arranged in any definitive ranking—they’re listed by state instead—but the honor is impressive all the same. Writer Sadiba Hasan listed several reasons as to why the custom bootmakers made the list.
“An assortment of custom and off-the-rack Western wear can be found. The star products are boots, thousands of which line shelves, in leathers ranging from calf to alligator. Available in myriad colors, there are pairs for everyone, including baby boots that fit in the palm of a hand,” she wrote.
The company—which operates two stores in Texas, one in the Stockyards and one in San Angelo—expressed its appreciation for being included on the NYT list. “Sending a heartfelt Texas thank you to the New York Times for including us in their recent list of the 50 Best retail stores in America,” Leddy’s wrote on Facebook. For those already familiar with the brand, this inclusion seems like a no-brainer, as many people have relied on M.L. Leddy’s quality craftsmanship for decades.
The store has been a DFW staple since the 1920s
In Sadiba Hasan’s write-up for the New York Times, she spoke about how M.L. Leddy’s has deep roots in Texas’s soil. “The Leddy name has been linked to cowboy boots handmade in Texas since the early 20th century, when M.L. Leddy established his namesake business, now in its fourth generation of family ownership.” The company was started in 1922 by M. L. Leddy, a young Texan who worked alongside his brothers to create quality handcrafted boots and saddles. Over time, the brand’s reputation grew, and business boomed along with it.
On its website, M.L. Leddy’s emphasizes that, over 100 years later, it’s still producing items the original Leddy brothers would be proud of, writing, “We still handcraft boots and saddles in the same time-honored way M.L. did when he first began. We also strive to have the most impressive selection of men’s and women’s fashions, jewelry, belts, buckles, hats, and tailored clothing anywhere in the Western world.”
The company also writes that walking into the Fort Worth Stockyards or the Downtown San Angelo stores feels like taking “a step back to a time when a handshake was as good as a contract, and folks still went out of their way to make sure the job was done right.” Hasan noted the importance of this detail as well, writing in her New York Times summary that the Fort Worth store is the largest of the two. It’s also well-known for an iconic boot-shaped neon sign that hangs out front, which “beckons customers inside” for that dreamy, old-school boot buying experience.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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