Bought a pair of Ariat V Sport tall boots on a great deal. The zipper on my left boot just will not stay up. My left calf is larger then my right and I have a harder time getting the zipper completely zipped. When I ride and use my calf the zipper always unzips almost halfway down. I can get the zipper to “lock” and not unzip when it’s not on my leg but it seems a bit more hit or miss then my right boot. Is there anything at all I can do other then getting the zipper replaced? It’s super frustrating as I really love the boots!!
I have this same problem with these same boots. I’ve been using a small elastic band looped through the zipper pull and then through the tab at the top. It works reasonably well but I will probably just get the zippers replaced at some point because its super annoying.
Glad I’m not alone! I will try that elastic through the pull and hope it helps a bit. It’s very annoying, agreed, I think the boots are super comfortable though.
Can you take a picture? I’m having a hard time imagining how you’re doing this! I’m having the same problem with my new Ariats. The old ones had the second tab to hold the zipper up, but these new ones don’t. Pretty frustrating.
It’s not that expensive to just replace the zippers with higher quality ones. I had to do the same with my boots.
I took a small key ring and attached it to the zipper. My boots have an elastic strap that buttons at the top. I put the strap through the key ring when the zipper’s all the way up, and then button the strap closed. Keeps the zipper up all day and I can’t even tell it’s there. Doesn’t scratch my saddle, either!
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I’ll take one when I’m at the barn in the couple of days.
To elaborate, there’s a little hole on the end of the actual zipper pull, I thread a braiding elastic through the hole and loop it through itself to secure it to the zipper pull, then when I zip the boots all the way up I thread the leather tab at the top of my boot through the excess of the elastic and snap it closed. If your boots don’t have that extra snap tab at the top it wont work because there’s nothing to secure it to. I actually got the idea from a similar thread posted here a few months ago - EDIT - it was this thread no pictures but lots of good ideas. Also seems only the pull may need to be replaced and not the whole zipper according to people it that thread.
The key ring is also a great idea!
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Love this idea, thank you! Going to try it!
It’s probably not actually the zipper that needs replaced. It’s that the calf of the boot is too small for you just below the knee.
I would take them somewhere and see if they can stretch them a little bit. I did like the above posters for about a year, using an elastic to keep the zippers up. Than I took them to get replaced, the stretch them just below the knee instead, which was about half the price, and I never had a problem with the zippers again.
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funny, my boots (Fabbri’s) didn’t start unzipping until I lost weight and now my left boot is too big! So weird. Now I have to sell my $1000 boots for the going used rate of 400-500…yay…
I have a saddlery that will stretch boots very close buy, I’ll give them a call! The other boot is perfect, so I’m hoping that’s the case!
I had the same problem (and posted a thread about it a few months ago), I ended up taking a number string and tying it in a loop through the zipper. When I zip my boots, I loop the string through the top where the snap goes under my knee. Works like a charm!
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I don’t think it’s the zipper that’s the problem. Either the boots are not tall enough for your leg, or they’re too small in the calf for your leg. There are a bunch of ways to get around the problem, but a true solution would be to have boots fitted to you.
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Agreed, but I got these on a screaming deal and I only use them for schooling, so didn’t want to spend a ton of money. The tack store folks said that they fit fine, but I agree it’s probably not big enough as this is my larger calf and on my other leg it’s fine.
