Authentic Apparel
Milton Menasco is a stylish Western wear brand founded by Alli Addison in 2019. The name is a nod to her famous equine portrait artist great-uncle, Milton Menasco.
“The brand was really founded on the love, appreciation and basis of art. With Milton Menasco, there’s a classic element,” Addison says. “It’s evolved. Once I started leaning in harder to create a brand that represented me and my own passions, it just took off.”
Addison rides hunter-jumpers, but she lives on a ranch in central California where ranching and agriculture are prominent. She spends just as much time ranching with her children, hauling to rodeos and roping practices as she does in the equestrian world.
“My family has lived out here since the 1800s. I was born and raised here, and now I’m raising my own family in the same way and capacity that I was lucky enough to grow up in,” Addison says.
This has influenced the products she creates.
“We started designing and crafting clothing and accessories, and it began encompassing not only an equestrian lifestyle but Western as well because that is the life that I live,” Addison says.
Milton Menasco pieces influences of English equestrian style with Western wear.
“We create clothing; we create fashion for people who ride English, people who ride Western, for people who don’t even ride at all but have an appreciation for ‘horse culture,’” Addison says.
In addition to founding the company, Addison wears many hats, including designer. Popular pieces include a baseball cap with a subtle embroidered horse based on a sketch by Menasco himself. Another bestseller is a Western pearl snap button-down shirt, lovingly called the Colt Shirt (part of the cult-favorite Milton Menasco x Street & Saddle collaboration collection), now re-iterated in its third year with new colorways and Western detailing. Each item is designed in California and handcrafted in Canada.
“Because we make so many of our styles to order, many items can be customized,” Addison says. “We have a massive size range that we can do. We can do short sleeves, and we can do longer lengths. It often feels like bespoke tailoring, which is truly special.”
This fall, Milton Menasco will expand its offerings with another curated vintage collection, a second-year interpretation of the hugely popular sporty cowgirl of Milton’s Country Club collection, and a new elevated work wear collection crafted of hardy materials, work jackets and durable pieces that are also stylish.
“It’s almost like if Coco Chanel decided to go out and work on a ranch, what would she wear?” Addison says. “And it needs to be durable and classic, something you’re going to want to reach for again and again. We design things for that purpose, almost like an heirloom-quality piece that you hold onto and wear again and again because the quality of the fabric and construction allows you to keep using it.”
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