About Crossbow Telluride: Women-Owned Business Curating Western Style

Our Story

Made here. Made to Live with.

Crossbow is a women-powered leather goods and custom hat company born in Telluride Colorado. It was started with a simple belief: make good things, and make them to last.

Inspired by our western heritage here in the American West, , we design and make leather goods, custom hats, sterling silver, apparel, and everyday pieces that bring the time-honored processes into modern life. Our original leather designs are made by hand in our Norwood, Colorado Leather Shop, where the knowledge behind cutting, stitching, shaping, and making is passed from one capable set of hands to another.

That same philosophy shapes the experience inside of our stores. We believe confidence comes from capability and the freedom to make something your own. Whether that means learning a craft, shaping a hat alongside one of our hat makers, or carrying a leather bag until it tells a story of its own, we want what we make to become part of the life you're building.

It Started on the Floor of a Bedroom

Before there was a storefront, there was a cutting mat under Macy's bed.

Telluride native Macy Pryor technically started Crossbow in October 2015, but the instinct behind it started much earlier. She studied studio art, but was drawn less to traditional fine art than to making useful things with her hands. After college, Macy moved to Santa Barbara, where struggling to be taken seriously as a young woman in metal and woodworking pushed her toward leather. She started small, pulling a cutting mat from underneath her bed to work on the floor, before eventually apprenticing under a local leathersmith and becoming his production manager. By June 2016, custom orders had given her enough momentum, and enough hard-earned education, to go out on her own.

“I really wanted to make something that was utilitarian and functional and would enhance your everyday.”
— Macy Pryor

Coming Home

Eventually, Macy came home to Telluride, moving herself into her parents' basement and setting up a leather shop into their garage. In 2018, she took a chance on a temporary lease in a historic building on Main Street. It wasn't quite a store... It was part workshop, part art studio, part living room. Customers could walk in, see leather being cut and sewn, and buy the pieces being made around them. That transparency and intimate shopping experience became part of Crossbow, and it remains central to the brand today.

Then Rebecca Walked In

First a customer. Then a friend. Eventually, the other half of the equation.

Rebecca Adams met Macy the way plenty of people did: by walking into her leather shop and adding pieces to her own collection. She was new to the area, coming from California where she had spent roughly a decade helping build a startup from the ground up through its eventual acquisition.

She understood how to take an idea and build a company around it. Macy understood material, form, construction, and product. The two shared an impatience with disposable fashion and started asking what they might build together.

Macy had the obsession with product. Rebecca had the instinct for scale. Both believed there was room for something better.

Two Points of View, One Crossbow

Modern and bold meets Western elegance.

The creative juxtaposition between Macy and Rebecca has become one of Crossbow's greatest strengths. Macy gravitates toward modern, innovative, design-driven pieces. Rebecca’s love for not only vintage western style, but the history and culture surrounding it. Her perspective is grounded in a timeless, classic sense of style, and an underlying femininity that softens and balances Macy's bolder design instincts. Crossbow lives somewhere between the two.

Macy Pryor, Co-founder Crossbow Leather & Hats

Macy Pryor, Co-founder Crossbow Leather in the Leathershop Denim Jacket

Rebecca Adams, Co-founder Crossbow Leather & Hats in the Fenceline Jacket

Crossbow Founders outside the Telluride Flagship

Founders Macy & Rebecca outside the Crossbow Flagship store in Telluride

Hats Find a Home at Crossbow

A move. A new focus. Finally, the Crossbow we know and love.

In 2021 as Crossbow continued to grow, Rebecca and Macy opened Rustler inside the historic Bank Building, where they brought in vintage, Western apparel, and a tiny custom hat operation in the back. Then the hats took off. Within a short period, they had grown to roughly half of Rustler's business.

What began as two complementary businesses gradually became one. When the stores eventually consolidated into a new Telluride location, the founders chose Crossbow Leather & Hats as the name that would carry the company forward.

Even the logo tells that story. Rustler's original cattle-brand symbol used two Rs. When the brands came together, the Rs became Cs, transforming an artifact from one chapter of the company into the mark Crossbow uses today.

Made by Capable Hands

The best thing we can make isn't a product. It's another craftsperson.

Crossbow is woman-owned, but the more important story is what happens because of that. Women work across all facets of the business, with ideas moving freely between disciplines. Macy and Rebecca describe empowerment as one of the company's central values: teaching employees to become capable craftspeople and passing down skills that have existed for generations.

Sewing the Suede Shawl Vest

Saughterig a Sterling Silver Scarf Slide

Macy Pryor leather embossing the Crossbow logo onto leather

Behind the scenes of the Norwood Leather Shop

Craftsmanship, Carried Forward

The point isn't to recreate the past. It's to keep what still matters moving forward.

Hat making, silversmithing, sewing, and leathercraft all carry histories much older than Crossbow. Yet, this does not mean that they have to be stuck in the past.

Our philosophy is simple: We believe craftsmanship belongs in contemporary culture, and that the skills taught to us are worth carrying forward.

New Pieces, Same Ideas.

Will this mean something in twenty years?

One of our newest designs, the Lollie Bag represents both where Crossbow came from and where we're headed. It’s Crossbow's first bag constructed entirely from U.S.-sourced materials and manufactured from start to finish in the United States. Its structured silhouette feels different from some of our softer leather staples, but the philosophy is exactly the same: quality materials, thoughtful design, and a product made to stand the test of time.

Production Begins: The Lollie

Bridle leather pieced together by hand in the Norwood Leathershop

Our first batch: The Lollie is born

The Lollie arrives in Jackson Hole

Come See For Yourself

Crossbow isn't meant to be experienced from behind a glass case.

Walk into a Crossbow store and you're invited into the process. Creating a custom hat starts by finding the right body and fit, then working alongside one of our hat makers as they steam, shape, adjust, decorate, sew, and brand it by hand. The experience can take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours, and no two hats leave the same. Alongside your hat, you can build a belt, discover vintage pieces, shop handmade leather and sterling silver, and get to know the people who are making it all.

That participation is intentional. We don't just want you to buy a piece from Crossbow. We want you to have a hand in its story.