Dressing for the West - #79

Part II of Building a Wardrobe.

Last week, I covered my own sartorial history. This week, we get into the good stuff: what it means to dress for the West. I loved writing it, and I hope you enjoy it. Worth noting, I’m not a fashion historian, just a curious writer. If you’ve got extra color to add to this essay, educate us all in the comments. And if you find the piece interesting, do a writer a favor: share it.

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Conjure an image of western wear. It covers a lot of ground: it’s as easy to summon a picture of Kevin Costner riding in on horseback as it is to imagine Dolly Parton’s rhinestones. Worn denim, big hats, flannels, buckskin, fringe, bolo ties, furs, cowboy boots, they’re all part of culture’s romantic vision of what it means to live in wide open spaces. But those images are more often Hollywood-generated than they are true. 

Western wear comes from several different cultures. People didn’t hop into covered wagons and emerge fully regaled in what we consider the cowboy aesthetic. Let’s start with the classic image of a Wild West cowboy: we’ve got a cowboy hat, buckskin jacket, and fringed chaps.  Buckskins and fringe were part of indigenous dress, chaps were inherited from the Spanish ranchers importing cattle from Cuba to Mexico, and most of the famous “cowboys” were actually wearing bowler hats.

It’s also a safe bet when picturing the classic cowboy that most people picture a white man. The reality was 20-25% of cowboys were Black, many were Chinese who comprised nearly 30% of the Idaho territory’s population in 1870, and very few were dying from gunslinging. Most true cowboys were working cattle, running farms, competing in rodeo, and living their lives. It was a hard life and clothes were worn for utility. Chaps protected your legs from brambles and cacti, hats kept the rain off your face, and materials were chosen for their warmth and durability. Western wear was, in every essence, workwear.

The “Wild West” was actually a relatively narrow era, lasting approximately from the end of the American Civil War to the beginning of the 20th century as the United States government incorporated Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico, then making a territory of the District of Alaska, decimating native people and their cultures and traditions along the way. Legends like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were found dead in a shootout all the way in Bolivia, and the last stagecoach robbery happened in 1916 when something much bigger was taking American attention and its cowboys: World War I.  

Those first decades of the 20th century in America saw wild urbanization. In 1890, 80% of Americans lived in rural areas living rural lives. By 1915, only 65 percent were living outside cities of 30,000 or more. The outlaws were out and American industrialization was in. The dime store novels, once the height of entertainment, were also out. We were headed into the rise of Hollywood, and with it, its influence on fashion. Western wear took a backseat, sticking to the barns and ranches that still used it as workwear, as Hollywood movies dictated the style of the day. 

In those years after WWI, one class of Americans did fall in love with western wear: the wealthy class. Between the wars, and especially as WWII approached, wealthy Americans were less and less comfortable traveling to Europe. Instead, they headed west to Dude Ranches for their leisure time. Western wear was looking down the barrel of its sartorial glorification. Only a decade and change later, when America emerged from World War II with a boom, would the country and Hollywood begin their ongoing campaign of Wild West glamorization.

After World War II, companies that had focused on selling garments to manual laborers like cowboys, ranchers, and others had an opportunity to attract a whole new level of customer. Changing production is expensive, so instead, they changed marketing. Companies like Lee and Wrangler expanded their markets to leisure while Hollywood churned out cowboy blockbusters, romanticizing a bygone era. 

Soon western shirting and jeans were seen at backyard BBQs. Kids were running around in Lone Ranger and Hop Along Cassidy outfits. Roy Rogers was everywhere. Nashville was establishing itself as one of the prominent American meccas of music and along with it the rhinestone cowboy. But as western wear grew in popularity for the broader market, not quite everyone was on board.

In fashion historian Sonya Abrego’s book Westernwear: Postwar American Fashion and Culture, she reports that the closer you were to actually being working class, the less interested you were in dressing in workwear. The upper classes didn’t have this negative connotation. Abrego includes in her book a Lee ad from the day targeted at women, the copy reading: “She wears Dior at night and Lee in the sparkling western sunlight.” 

And so begins the divide in western wear and what westerners actually wear.

Earlier this week, I went to town wearing a pullover baselayer, your basic puffy, Lululemon leggings, and lined doc martens. I felt a little silly wearing leggings in town, but I was heading to a new-to-me yoga class, the library, and the grocery store — they’d be fine. I threw a pair of snowpants in the backseat of the truck, and I put gloves and a hat into my backpack; you never knew when you might need to dig someone’s car out of a snowbank. Also in my backpack was an insulated water canister, my laptop, and a couple of library books. 

On my walk from the library to the yoga studio, a woman jogged out in front of me from an interior design consulting business. Her platinum hair was slicked back into a claw clip, and she was also wearing a puffy and leggings, but there were some differences. Her black puffy was, well, enormously puffy but cropped well above her hips. It had a metallic sheen like a garbage bag, and its massive size enhanced the slenderness of her legs clad in black leggings of a fabric so delicate I’ll leave out the details. Her legs disappeared into furry black boots that looked as if they were pulled from the costume department’s depiction of Big Foot. Tucked under her arm, a metallic clutch. 

For all our different choices, we were wearing the same outfit: jacket, leggings, boots, bag. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with her outfit — her trajectory appeared to be from a meeting to the post office, it’s not like she was in deep need of technical apparel — but it’s about what her outfit says, and to who. She and I don’t share a common style, but we do share a common desire: to look chic in a place where looking chic is kind of embarrassing.

Everywhere you go, there’s a dress code. The office, out to dinner, the airport (which let’s just say is proof we’re not all looking at the same code), but codes are set by culture. An expensive dinner used to call for dresses and jackets. Now, if you’re on the waitlist for an exclusive table in LA, it would not be surprising to see baseball caps, midriffs, and sandals abound. It would be more surprising to not see these things. 

In Colorado and every other mountain state, there is an ever present mother-figure leaning into your bedroom to yell, “you can’t wear that,” and that mother is Mother Nature. Especially as you leave the Front Range and head into the mountains, your clothing is often, at least in some ways, dictated by the weather. 

At the beginning of this winter, one of my favorite clothing brands out of Brazil, known for their tropical prints, launched their first dive into ski wear. As much as I crave fuschia in my wardrobe, the only thing I really thought was there’s no way these jackets shot on a set of fake snow can actually withstand conditions. You can tell a local not only by what they’re wearing, but by how they say “conditions.” 

Patagonia, The North Face, Mountain Hardware, Arc'teryx — these brands all have a deathgrip on mountain fashion not because their clothes are especially sexy, but because they perform. On a dreamy 30°F bluebird day, you can get away with “fashion”, but if it’s -10° windchill with 40mph winds, you’re not trying to vibe, you’re trying to survive.

Inherent is this: if you look fashionable, you have chosen fashion over function, and if you’re not choosing function, it’s because you haven’t learned your lesson. And the only people who don’t learn lessons are the ones who don’t have to. The purpose of technical wear isn’t just to keep you warm, it’s to keep you alive when things go wrong. 

So if someone doesn’t need technical apparel for a trip to the post office, why the judgment? 

It harkens back to Lee and Wrangler’s marketing strategy. In order to think workwear was chic, you couldn’t associate it with actually working. The rise of Big Hat Culture seen everywhere from brunch at Venice Beach to après ski in Aspen isn’t because women en masse have discovered their calling in cattle driving — it’s because those wide brims are associated with the lifestyle du jour: one immersed in nature, but protected from the realities of it. More Jackson than Driggs, more Sun Valley than Hailey, and more Beth Dutton than Teeter. Hollywood is still pulling the stampede strings in the fashion industry.

All pulled from the Overland website. I went to Overland once, in the town over, to look at the cost of a shearling rug. The clerk asked where I was visiting from, and I told her I was local. She apologized, saying, “locals don’t usually come in here.”

Referred to as the “Yellowstone Effect,” consumers are being influenced by Yellowstone and its spinoffs 1883 and 1923, the cinematic universe from Taylor Sheridan. Sheridan was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (home to my alma mater), but grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. His family purchased a ranch (his father being a cardiologist) when Sheridan was 8, where he got his first exposure to ranch life. But even he didn’t live there. He was visiting. But his shows capture a truth: the rugged individualism forever enshrined in the American Way still runs deep in the West. And big egos behind big desks want to capture that truth for themselves. 

Tourists can often be caught cosplaying the western lifestyle. Brokers from New York City are suddenly auditioning for Brokeback Mountain, all buckles, belts, and big ass hats. Influencers are kept warm by an amount of fur that would make a trapper blush. And every form-fitting onesie on the mountain can be found in the lodge when the winds come in. Boots that are unscuffed, puffies that are unscathed, clothes that look like they go from the jet to the hotel to the lodge — they send messages woven into the problems this region faces. Native print ponchos on women who’ve never been to a reservation. Cowboy hats on men who’ve never tended a field or shoveled manure. Buckle Bunny lookalikes posing on the balconies of their mainstreet Airbnbs, perfectly ignorant and immune to the realities of the housing market. 

There is a hardiness to living here, especially in the places most locals can afford, and that’s universal to mountain towns like this one. When you see someone wearing furry boots and fashion jackets, you can’t help but think you have no idea what it takes to be a part of this life. And they don’t have to. They have a different life, and much of the disdain for their fashion comes from disdain for their politics and their general way of life. There are plenty of good tourists just like there are second home owners and wealthy residents who care about these communities, who understand, acknowledge, and work to share their privilege. But there are plenty who don’t. 

Maybe that’s why it’s a struggle to wear a nice dress to town. No one wants to give someone the opportunity to see them and think they’re part of the problem — at least no one that’s aware of the problems. It’s not like the locals are all dressed in rags. They’re wearing Flylow, Gramicci, and La Sportiva, often decked out in gear as expensive as the outfits they detest. But that gear is often bought through pro-deals and sales. It conveys a capability, a certain earning of your stripes to be here, and those pieces get worn day in and day out, not rotated through a closet as big as a bedroom. They serve a purpose beyond looks. They don’t emulate a lifestyle. They live it. Drive an hour or two outside of a resort on the Western Slope of Colorado and you’ll still see big hats and big buckles, they’ll just be on horseback moving cattle alongside a two-lane road. 

When I build a wardrobe here, I’m not just trying to stay warm, I’m not just trying to stay on the mountain all day, and I’m not just trying to make sure I can survive when something goes wrong. I’m trying to say something about myself. Everywhere else I’ve lived, I wanted to stand out, to prove I wasn’t a corporate cog or the oft-defamed basic bitch clad in H&M, deaf to the realities of whoever was sewing those trends together. It’s not that I want to blend in here — it’s that I want to belong in a community of people doing the right thing. Of course no one’s going to think I’m a private jet tourist straight out of a Texan oil field if I’m wearing FarmRio at the library, they might just think I’m a little weird. And they’d be right! I am a little weird! 

Mountain town fashion is always going to be a little silly. So long as there are visitors, there will be people excited to be on vacation, and people on vacation cannot be trusted to dress like anything but idiots, myself desperately keen to not be included. There’s an article on Byrdie titled “10 Stylish Outfits for a Summery Mountain Getaway” where the author suggests sweat shorts and a matching sports bra for hiking, bell bottoms and a 1700s men’s long sleeve shirt for horseback riding, and of course, a wide-brimmed hat for eating dinner. Maybe at the end of the day, tourists would genuinely rather look like each other than an irritated local. Maybe they’re doing us a favor by cosplaying lives they don’t want to lead. We know which skiers to steer clear of, we know which cars are gonna get stuck, we know which bars to skip, and we know who’s absolutely going to ask us if there’s an oxygen bar in town.

Mostly we know that stuff anyway because we know each other. But until everyone knows you, it’s tempting to save the bolder sartorial choices for later. There’s always the great fashion equalizer of a mountain to fall back on when you’re desperate for a little pointless flair: festivals. Only then do the rules go out the window and we’re all just drunk in a field. 

In the end, true western wear will always have one thing in common: utility. What a local really looks like will always be stratified by the life they have access to. The American West is still the rugged landscape of storms and avalanches and wildfires that it always was. To dress in the image of it, and not the reality of it, is to always be the one visiting the dude ranch, and never the one working it.