Wendy Weems and Kelly Beal

The lightbulb moment for Wendy Weems occurred at a year-end awards banquet for her husband’s cutting-horse circuit.

Weems watched a woman walk in to the banquet, and the entrance made a life-altering impression on her.

“Her outfit cost probably $2,000,” Weems said, “and she had flip-flops on. And I thought, ‘We’ve got to do something about this issue.’ It was a great outfit until you got to her feet.”

Weems had been considering going into one of various business ventures she had been mulling over. And her sister, Kelly Beall, had been producing designs for shoes that broke the mold for Western-inspired footwear. That mismatched outfit at the awards banquet was the spark for Weems – who soon told Beall that her creative concepts now had a financial underpinning, the missing element in turning the drawings into tangible products: Weems was going to be Beall’s business partner.

Weems, 51, of Sisters, and Beall, 52, who lives near Salem, teamed in 2013 to form Y Knot Branded, a footwear company that sells Western-inspired shoes suitable for dressy occasions.

“I was watching Kelly draw these shoes and come up with different designs,” Weems said, recalling the buildup to their business arrangement, “and I was actually going down a different path of looking at starting something completely different and not fashion-minded in the least.

“She kept bringing me her pictures and designs, and I said, ‘You’ve GOT to do this.’”

And they did.

Y Knot Branded sells sandals, wedges, pumps and the like, with heels of up to 4½ inches befitting a night out. All of the shoes have Western touches, such as conch shells, nailheads and chaps-inspired buckle sets. Among the company’s developments are spring 2016 products featuring fringe and what Beall calls “very flattering” inquiries that could have a considerable impact on the product line.

“There’s literally nothing like it in the market at all,” said Libby Atkinson, a buyer at High Desert Ranch & Home in Bend, referring to the Y Knot shoes. “And that comes from a buyer’s standpoint.”

Beall said the shoes’ uniqueness is both a draw and a drawback.

“Retailers say, ‘These are amazing. Why hasn’t anybody ever done these before?’ And that’s when the resistance comes in. ‘Well, they’re so new. I don’t know if I can take the risk of bringing in a product people aren’t familiar with.’ ”

If the product is unfamiliar, retailers and consumers can at least take heart in this: The Western-inspired fashion arises from who the sisters are.

Their mother, alone among her immediate family members, always exhibited a love for horses growing up, Beall says.

When her mother’s family moved from Long Island to Oregon, they traveled on a southerly route.

“Every state that they went through,” Beall said, “my mother insisted they stop and get horsehair from a horse in each state.”

Beall and Weems grew up on a small farm in Jefferson, a town with about 3,000 residents between Salem and Albany east of Interstate 5. They raised horses and showed pigs through the 4-H Club and the FFA.

“It just never left our blood,” said Weems, who competes in barrel racing and made the Columbia River Circuit finals in the fall. “It was something we got from our parents. They were into horses before we came along.”

After graduating from Oregon State, Weems worked as a registered dietitian in South Carolina for several years. She left that line of work for a job in the equine business. She moved from South Carolina to Central Oregon what will be seven years ago in January.

“Our parents would take us to Central Oregon when we were little,” Weems said. “I always said if I could live in Sisters someday, I was going to do it. ”

Beall has worked in the Western fashion and equipment industry for the bulk of her professional life. She has been a manufacturer’s representative for all manner of equine products and Western wear. She likes working with the products – “It hearkens back to the history of our country and where we came from, and it’s something I can’t imagine not doing” – and she loves the lifestyle – “My dream life is I’d never be home. (Weems’) dream life is that she’d never leave her ranch.”

Beall handles the sales and marketing of Y Knot Branded shoes, and she has continued to work as a representative of other companies’ products. Weems handles the operation of the company, which has a distribution center in Portland where shipments and returns are processed.

Shoes are handmade in China. More than 10 retail outlets in the United States and Canada offer the company’s products, as does a shop in Australia. Weems said a company in Holland requested in November to carry their shoes, and she sees Brazil and China as areas of rich growth potential.

Their bestseller is called Cowboy’s Sweetheart, a sandal with chocolate pebble leather inlays and a silver-tone western buckle set, on a 4½-inch heel with a 1½-inch platform.

The marriage of Western inspiration and fashion footwear has struck a chord, Weems said.

The new year will mark their third anniversary in business, and Weems said they’ve heard the feedback about their products over and over in that time.

“Yes, we’re women who can stack a ton of hay and go unload 15 bags of feed, but when we go out, we want to put on a heel and a dress and look pretty.”