Yahoo Lifestyle Hurricane Helene Destroyed His Footwear Brand. So He Started a New One.
Justin James is a hard man to keep down. The North Carolina native and father of three was preparing to mark the fifth anniversary of the sneaker brand he’d founded, Opie Way, when Hurricane Helene struck in September 2024. After ensuring the safety of his family and neighbors, he texted the owner of the Asheville building where Opie Way had its factory.
“I don’t have great news,” came the reply, followed by photos of the building flooded to its windows and a muddy parking lot littered with rubber soles. James fueled his truck with a five-gallon tank of emergency gas, drove the 25 miles from his home, and saw the devastation for himself. Up to six feet of flooding had completely destroyed Opie Way’s product stock, leather and materials, with only its machines left in salvageable condition. For the foreseeable future, the small business he’d built and named after his two eldest daughters would cease to exist.
More from Robb Report
Meet the Costume Designer Bringing Kevin Costner's Epic Western to Life
King Charles's Tailor Just Opened Its First Store Outside London
For most, this would not be the opportune moment to start another footwear brand—but not for James. “To me, it was the best time to do it,” he tells Robb Report. “It’s like we were going to double down and believe in what we do.”
The result of that doubling down is Pearl Boot Co., a Western boot brand James named after his youngest daughter and launched in the last days of 2024. Like Opie Way, its footwear is manufactured domestically, using the highest-quality leathers he can source—in this case, pull-up hides from Chicago’s famous Horween tannery, or full-grain suedes from Italy. In another similarity to his earlier business, which offered a “Lifetime” resole service, Pearl’s boots are Goodyear-welted so that may be resoled for years to come.
“I want you to hand these boots down to your grandkids,” says James, who through Pearl Boot Co. even sells a proprietary “cowboy butter” conditioner designed to keep leather supple via a natural composition of grass-fed tallow, organic beeswax and jojoba.
The switch from sneakers to Western footwear sounds like a whiplash-inducing turn. But James, who recalls wearing snakeskin boots growing up and notes that his father had once been a bull rider, says that he’d long wanted to make cowboy boots. “And then, when that happened to Opie Way, we just decided that is the time for us to lean into this pretty hard.”
Pearl Boot Co. launched with a single style of cowboy boot for men and women respectively, plus a capped-toe lace-up “inherited” from Opie Way. The boots, designed by James himself, are built on custom lasts and inspired by the footwear rocked by 1990s country stars including George Strait and Toby Keith. They differ in their toe shape and height: the men’s feature a more contemporary rounded toe, while the women’s is marked by a pointed and decidedly Western “snip” toe and rises to a height of 14”, as compared to 12” for the men’s.
Both stand on rounded heels and are decorated with tonal embroidery based on designs sketched by James. For the men’s, it’s a pair of bird’s wings in reference to the Lynyrd Skynyrd power ballad Free Bird, while the women’s bears an abstract floral pattern meant as an homage to James’s wife, whom he credits as a driving force behind both of his footwear businesses.
In time, he hopes to stock between 8 to 10 styles each for both genders, which will include variants like a snip toed men’s boot as well as a boot with a straighter roper heel. What he cares most about, however, is that customers will actually wear them.
“I’m trying to change people’s minds about how they feel about a Western boot,” he continues. “My goal is to show people that they can be designed for you to wear with a suit, to make them a heritage piece of footwear that you need for your wardrobe.”
As all-in on cowboy boots as James sounds, he hasn’t forgotten about his first baby. He’s currently touring new spaces to rebuild a factory for Opie Way, and eventually bring it back online in tandem with Pearl Boot Co. While it won’t be the easiest of lifts, it’s par for the course for James, who ties it back to the example he hopes to set for both brands’ namesakes.
“I’m giving it the biggest run I’ve ever given it to show them that if you really want to do something, you can do it,” he says.
Best of Robb Report
Sign up for RobbReports's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
