When customers asked for more ways to incorporate the brand into their lifestyle, Lucchese saw a great opportunity and accepted the challenge. Boldly moving into the future while keeping an eye firmly on the past, Lucchese is proud to debut a fashion footwear collection for women and men for Spring 2014.

Now when Lucchese fans remove their Western boots, they can slip into a sandal, pump or oxford that’s been handcrafted by Lucchese artisans in El Paso and Italy (where founder Sam Lucchese was born in 1868) using the same old-world boot- and shoemaking techniques the company is famous for.

Designer Frank Zambrelli describes the collection as “casual but extremely luxurious,” listing utilitarian functionality, the majesty of the horse and the history of the late-19th and early-20th centuries as points of inspiration. 

“We started by thinking about what level of craft was being used in the shoe world that would be on par with Lucchese’s Western boot construction methods,” he explains, ultimately implementing not only genuine Goodyear construction, but opanka and reverse sew methods.

Construction aside, the 130-year-old soul of the brand is carefully extended throughout the collection by way of traditional Western details like steel toes, overlays, lemonwood pegging and the use of the world's best exotic skins.

“We think about [designing the collection] as a dialect. The words are here, we're just forming a new sentence,” Zambrelli says of keeping Lucchese heritage top-of-mind. “So the vocabulary doesn’t change; it’s the way we put it together that changes.”

High-fashion stalwarts like DuJour, W, Women’s Wear Daily, The Robb Report and Harper’s Bazaar have taken notice and celebrated the collection’s arrival, which is available in select stores (Lucchese Nashville, San Antonio and Sante Fe; Tootsies in Houston; and Kemo Sabe in Aspen, Vail and Las Vegas), and on the Lucchese website.

Click through the slideshow above, shop the collection and go behind the scenes here.