What it’s actually like
In a Western town, the belt buckle is the jewelry men are allowed to wear, and Saddlebags has been selling the serious kind in Scottsdale since 1992. It is a small, family-owned shop on Marshall Way at Main Street, at the edge of the arts district, and its cases are full of buckle sets: a buckle, keeper and tip in sterling silver, often worked with 14-karat gold, in designs that run from engraved Western scrollwork to clean contemporary lines. Some are multi-piece sets, some one-piece buckles, some set with stone.
The second half of the shop is the leather. Behind the counter are belt straps in lizard, alligator in matte, glossy, sueded and hornback finishes, ostrich, bison, stingray, snake and Nile crocodile, along with plain and Western-tooled leather. You choose the buckle, then the strap, and the staff assemble the belt in the store to your size. The straps are interchangeable, so the buckle you buy is the one you keep and the strap is the part you change.
The rest of the stock is what you would expect from a shop that dresses the well-heeled Western customer: cufflinks, money clips and keyrings, bolo ties and hatbands, women’s earrings, bracelets, necklaces and scarf slides, wallets and bags, and a case of antique, vintage and pre-owned pieces. Names you will see include Bohlin, the Hollywood silversmith’s line, and James Reid, the Santa Fe silversmiths.
What to buy
A buckle set. The franchise. Sterling with gold accents is the classic; ask to see the contemporary designs too, which suit a suit better than a rodeo.
An exotic strap. Hornback alligator is the showpiece; ostrich and lizard are the everyday luxury; bison is the understated choice.
Cufflinks or a money clip. The gift for the man who will not wear a big buckle, in the same metals and designs.
A pre-owned buckle. The vintage and pre-owned case is where a fine buckle can be had for less, and where the oddities turn up.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
The shop is at 3940 North Marshall Way, next door to Schaffer’s Bridal at the Main Street corner of the Main Street Arts District. Street spaces on Marshall Way turn over slowly; the public garage near Main Street and First Street is the closest reliable parking, and the free Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard is a flat walk east across Scottsdale Road. The Old Town on foot note maps the district.
Assembly is done in the store, so a fitted belt is usually a same-visit purchase if the buckle and strap are in stock, and the shop ships anywhere if you would rather not carry it. Winter and spring are the busy seasons, peaking around Parada del Sol and the Scottsdale Western Week in February, when the town dresses Western and a new belt is part of the costume. Thursday evenings bring the ArtWalk to the street outside; check hours before planning a night visit. For the bigger Western wardrobe, Saba’s and Porter’s handle boots and hats.
Eat while you’re there
Arcadia Farms Café on First Avenue is the daytime lunch a block north. Malee’s Thai Bistro on Main Street has been the gallery crowd’s dinner since 1987, and Sel a few doors west is the prix-fixe splurge. The Rusty Spur Saloon across Scottsdale Road is the right place to test a new buckle.
How it got here
Saddlebags began in the luxury-resort economy of the early 1990s. The Phoenician opened in 1988 at the foot of Camelback Mountain, and in 1992 Saddlebags opened its first store there, selling silver and gold buckles to resort guests who wanted a piece of the West that was more jewelry than costume. Two years later, in 1994, the family opened a second store at The Borgata, the brick-towered replica of a Tuscan hill town on Scottsdale Road.
Both of those addresses belonged to a particular moment in Scottsdale retail, when the money shopped in resort arcades and boutique villages away from downtown. That moment passed, and the Borgata’s run as a shopping village ended in the 2010s. Saddlebags today trades from Marshall Way at Main Street, in the gallery district where Western art and fine Western jewelry have shared a market since the 1960s.
It is a natural fit. Marshall Way and Main Street sell bronzes of cowboys and paintings of horses to the same collectors who wear a sterling buckle to dinner, and a family-run buckle shop with three decades of history sits comfortably beside the galleries and the Native American jewelers of Main Street. It is one of the smallest shops in the district and one of the most specific, which is exactly why the people who need it find it.