The Black Beauty is Back. Limited Pre-Order. Reserve now.
Pre-order — standard batch
We’ll pay you $205 to wait.
Our Black Beauty off the shelf goes for $995. Since the fire we have not been able to keep them in stock. We have some inventory, but the popular sizes are usually sold out. Our pre-order programme gets you your pair and helps us rebuild our inventory. So wait 8 to 12 weeks for yours, and we pay you $205 for your time.
Built to order, one pair at a time, it takes fourteen to twenty weeks. We have commissioned an exclusive leather, set a single specification, and we are building it in a batch.
- The Black Beauty, on the shelf today$995
- Pre-order$790
- Deposit today$295, reserves your pair
- Balance, when ready to ship$495
- Build time8 to 12 weeks
Fully refundable until the day we ship, with no fee. Change your size or width free of charge, any time before then. Once you have them, you have 30 days to exchange for another size or return them for a refund. No questions asked, though we will be curious.
Ten feet tall
“He’s a different person when he wears his Daytons. All of a sudden, he’s ten feet tall and bulletproof, and he can do anything he wants. His Daytons are rock and roll.”
— a woman, describing her man.
We get it. Nobody needs a handcrafted full-grain leather boot. Thirty dollars of rubber will keep your feet dry.
What a Dayton does is change how you walk into a room. The quality is real — Goodyear welted, beautiful full-grain leather, re-soleable, and built to maybe outlast you. We have been building boots like this for eighty years. But the quality is not the point. It is what the quality makes you feel. Confidence. Swagger. Ten feet tall and bulletproof.
Why the Beauty
A ranch boot with three conditions.
Charlie Wohlford and his son Wayne founded Dayton Boots in 1946 in East Vancouver. They built a following for their leather ski, logging and multi-purpose work boots. Then in 1962 Charles “Chunky” Woodward, the owner of Woodward’s Department Stores, came to Wayne for a ranch boot for himself and his hands at Douglas Lake, one of the largest cattle ranches in the world. He wanted a real working cowboy boot, and he had three conditions: no embroidery, a single seam up the outside of the shaft so it would not chafe the rider or the horse, and it had to be black.
That is the whole brief, and it is still the boot. Motorcycle clubs adopted it next and put a rubber sole under it for better wear on the road. The Beauty became the boot people meant when they said “my Daytons”.
It was also the boot bar owners across the Pacific Northwest were referring to when they put up “No Daytons Allowed” signs on their doors. Those signs are long gone now, and we regard the sentiment as a compliment — a serious boot, worn by serious people.
Place your deposit — $295Same boot. Why wait?
Nothing came out of the boot. The method changed.
Made-to-order and custom Beauties, built one at a time, take fourteen to twenty weeks and start at double the price of an off-the-shelf pair. Built in a standardised batch, to one specification, it takes a fraction of that time and the materials cost falls with it.
The upper and soling leather is tanned and finished to our exclusive specifications. The boots are handcrafted in our family-run workshop in León, Mexico, using the same materials, methods and specifications as our shops in Canada. We have been making the Beauty since 1962 and we have made improvements along the way. We think this is the best version yet.
All of that sets our shelf price. But your time is valuable and waiting is hard, so compensating you for it is the easy part.
Place your deposit — $295What you are buying
What $790 gets you.
- 5–6 oz full grain upper leather
- Goodyear welted, re-soleable and re-heelable
- Leather lining, insole and heel counter stiffeners
- Full length quarter-inch cork fill
- Steel shank
- Built on our 8223 western last, in E and EEE
- Free shipping across North America
- A limited edition "No Daytons Allowed" tee
If you change your mind
You are paying us months before we can hand you anything.
So the terms are the plainest we write. Cancel any time before we ship, for any reason, and your deposit comes back in full. No fee, no restocking charge, no reason required.
Change your size or width free of charge, any time before we ship.
If we are going to be late, we email you before the window is out, with a new date and the choice to wait or cancel. We do not wait for you to ask.
Once the boots reach you, you have thirty days to send them back and have your money returned. Try them on indoors, on carpet. We ask only that they come back showing no signs of wear, in their original packaging, and that you cover the return postage.
I have never owned a pair
Tell us your runner size. We do the rest.
Dayton sizes are men's UK, so the number on your trainers is not the number on your boots. You tell us what you run in and whether your foot takes a wider fit, and we convert it.
When your pair is ready we confirm the fit with you before anything is cut, and again on your final invoice. If it is wrong, you change it free of charge, any time before we ship.
Place your deposit — $295$790. $295 reserves your pair. 8 to 12 weeks.
Refundable in full up to 30 days after delivery.
Place your deposit — $295