Sister Act

A CHILDHOOD SPENT ON THEIR FAMILY’S REMOTE WEST TEXAS RANCH might not seem like an ideal incubator for a luxury fashion brand. But Lizzie Means Duplantis ’04 and Sarah Means ’12 share a lifelong love of style along with a potent work ethic and can-do attitude, all of which spurred their success in the world of upscale footwear.

Growing up, they dipped their toes into custom boot design by commissioning the occasional bespoke pair from Rios of Mercedes, a well-regarded South Texas wholesaler owned by their cousins. As young fifth-generation ranchers, the sisters wore cowboy boots day in and out, especially for chores alongside their father, Jon Means ’74. The ranch, near Marfa, Texas, has been in the family since 1884.

“He never gave us a pass because we were girls,” Duplantis said. “We were expected to saddle our horses like our brother. I appreciated that our dad instilled the confidence in us that you can absolutely do what you want to do.”

With a variety of materials and thread colors to choose from, customers can design their own Miron Crosby boots.

That self-assurance helped them crack the male-dominated category of footwear with their own luxury boot company, Miron Crosby, founded in 2017. Miron is a play on their great-grandfather’s name, Marion, and Crosby is the moniker of a favorite street in SoHo as well as a pasture on the family ranch.

“From our time after graduation in New York City, we knew we wanted to have something to wear at work that was representative of our personal aesthetic,” Means said. “We’ve always felt confident when wearing our boots and wanted to carry this same feeling into a boardroom or market appointment, all while staying true to ourselves and looking professional and chic.”

FINDING THEIR FOOTING

The isolated nature of ranch life prompted Jon and Jackie Means to send their children to boarding school at St. Stephen’s in Austin for high school. Both daughters considered TCU, their father’s alma mater, a natural next step.

As Horned Frogs, each forged a similar path. “Sarah and I were both presidents of Chi Omega during our time at TCU, and this was the first leadership role that we both had really taken on,” Duplantis said. “We learned how to work well with different team dynamics, as well as oversee a large group of people — skills that we still use today in our roles at Miron Crosby.”

Duplantis fell in love with her major while taking marketing classes. As an upperclassman, she completed a project on the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame for a class taught by Becky Beasley ’65, a retired professor of marketing in the Neeley School of Business. The experience proved formative. Duplantis discovered she loved strategizing ways to connect with clients and customers.

Sisters Lizzie Means Duplantis and Sarah Means opened their first Miron Crosby store in Dallas’s Highland Park Village.

“Lizzie is engaging, endearing and exuberant,” said Beasley, who served as an early sounding board for Miron Crosby. “She and Sarah have that true Wild West spirit. They go out and get it done.”

After graduation, Duplantis decamped to New York City, where she landed a job at Forbes magazine before heading to Goldman Sachs and later a hedge fund called Tiger Global. She learned about finance on the job.

“I thought I’d be in New York for just a little bit but ended up there for about 12 years,” she said.

In the city, she gravitated to a group of “Tex-pats” and began seeing Seth Duplantis ’03, then an MBA student at Columbia University. The two tied the knot and eventually relocated to Dallas to start a family. Their brood of five ranges in age from 10 to 3, with two girls bookending a trio of boys. The hands-on mom arranges her work schedule so she can pick the kids up most days after school.

After graduating from TCU in 2012, Means moved to New York City to work for Loeffler Randall. From her time at the American fashion house, she became fluent in wholesaling plus the quarterly market schedule and aspects of production. In 2015, she enrolled in law school at Texas Tech, harboring dreams of a career in oil and gas. She graduated with her Juris Doctor in 2018; to this day, she loves dissecting any contract that crosses her desk.

LEAP OF FAITH

For years, the sisters had bounced around ideas for a boot business. Duplantis credits a mentor at Tiger Global with “pushing me to skip rocks when I moved back to Texas. What I think he meant was to take some time and figure out what your next step is, your next career move. I longed for a more creative, entrepreneurial environment that I’d never been in.”

As a first step, she founded a Dallas-based furniture rental company called Perch Event Décor. “It wasn’t my passion,” she said, “but it was a great entry into learning the business.”

She sold Perch for seed money for Miron Crosby. The sisters opened their first store in Dallas’ Highland Park Village on June 20, 2017, simultaneously launching mironcrosby.com.

Since opening its flagship location in 2017, Miron Crosby has added stores in Houston and Aspen, Colorado.

Early on, they hired Caroline Cree, a designer in New York City, to fine-tune their ideas for boots for men, women and children. They describe her as “the third sister.”

From concept to a finished pair, it takes months to produce their handmade, heirloom-quality boots. Means and Duplantis manage the production at their family’s factories in South Texas and León, Mexico.

To keep on top of trends, they attend fashion shows and tear photos out of magazines. The sisters also find inspiration from travel and architecture, including a family trip to Egypt to celebrate their father’s 70th birthday. An ancient mosaic or piece of stained glass might become the basis of a new design.

Business thrived almost from Day 1, something they credit to a range of factors including social media and word-of-mouth from devoted clients such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Kacey Musgraves, Barbara Bush and Jenna Bush Hager. Publications including Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily and The New York Times have touted their designs and quality.

Though the pandemic brought with it a mandated store closure for nearly eight weeks, both sisters acknowledge that Miron Crosby likely benefited from the subsequent shift in the way Americans dress.

“We have always felt that cowboy boots can be worn in any setting, and during Covid we really saw a shift in consumer dressing habits that steered a bit more casual,” Means said. “With this, people really recognized that they could swap out their heels and more formal shoe options for a pair of boots and how versatile cowboy boots can really be.”

“I can’t tell you how much our business evolved from talking to people and rethinking it. You have to be at liberty to change your mind.”
Lizzie Means Duplantis

Boots for women — most of Miron Crosby’s sales — start at $895 and can go up to $3,895 depending on exotic materials like python, ostrich and buffalo or design elements like appliques and stitching.

The sisters parlayed their ability to customize boots into an especially rarefied example in October. The Neiman Marcus holiday catalog featured a pair of night sky-themed boots inlaid with diamonds, turquoise and 18-karat gold as one of its celebrated fantasy gifts. More than 3,000 stones adorn the tall black boots covered in Miron Crosby’s signature stars.

STEPPIN’ OUT

Buoyed by the Dallas shop’s success, the sisters opened a second store in Aspen, Colorado, in December 2021, a 2,000-square-foot studio in the heart of the ski town. A third location, in Houston’s historic Lamar-River Oaks shopping center, welcomed customers in November 2023. By Miron Crosby’s seventh anniversary in 2024, the business had grown to more than 30 employees, many of whom are Horned Frogs.

Social media success combined with word-of-mouth from clients such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Kacey Musgraves has fueled sisters Sarah Means, left, and Lizzie Means Duplantis’s business from the start.

“Mom and Dad always told us, ‘It’s not the cows, it’s the cowboys,’ ” Duplantis said. “You care so much about the people you work with.”

Laura Miller ’79, a former Trustee and past president of the TCU Alumni Association, isn’t surprised that the duo has created a successful company.

“These are young women who know how to work,” said Miller, who met the sisters through Chi Omega. “They’ve taken their life experiences from the ranch and bridged them beautifully to the fashion world. They are learners who never lose their relatability and authenticity. That’s their secret sauce.”

Duplantis and Means have fielded offers from investors keen to scale up the business, something they find flattering but readily decline.

“We love the relationships we’ve made, the opportunities we’ve had and also how we have been able to use our network for advice or introductions or connections,” Duplantis said. “People really do want to help you, and you can skip a lot of heartache by garnering the advice of those who have been through it already.”

“We’ve also learned to fall in love with the problem,” Means added. “Businesses exist to solve problems. We’ve been able to get curious about it and even gamify it.”

They continue to add styles and designs while also seeking novel ways to reach new customers. From September to November, they traveled to Lake Charles, Louisiana; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Atlanta; Los Angeles; Las Vegas and Scottsdale, Arizona, for trunk shows, some of which were hosted in private homes.

“I can’t tell you how much our business evolved from talking to people and rethinking it,” Duplantis said. “You have to be at liberty to change your mind.”

“And you have to enjoy the process,” Means added, flashing a grin her big sister’s way.