Hold onto your hats: Queen Bey heads west, fashion says ‘Yeehaw’
Blame Beyonce. Celebs from Pharrell Williams and Bella Hadid to Kim Kardashian are sporting Stetsons, fringing cowboy boots as western fashion gallops back into style. Here’s how to get it right.
Opinion
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Saddle up, we’ve got a style stampede.
Blame it on Beyonce, because there’s a Western-resurgence, which means one thing … the return of the dreaded cowboy boot.
Beyonce’s new country album Cowboy Carter launched on Friday and while the USA lassos itself into knots about whether she is or isn’t a country singer (“This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album,” she declared and what Queen Bey says, goes, in our opinion), the rest of the non-Texan world looks in bewilderment. And just a smidgen of fear.
Because Beyonce’s rootin’-tootin’ boot-scootin’, toe-tappin’ album – the follow-up to her 2022 album Renaissance – featuring country songs including her smash-hit Texas Hold ’Em and a cover of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, means “Cowboy Core”, as it’s being dubbed, has gone mainstream, for a while anyway.
In other words, Barbie Core is over, it’s going to be Stetson Season, as Western fashion gallops into style. And we’re going to have to muster up the energy to embrace it.
Everyone from Harry Styles to Bella Hadid and Kim Kardashian have been sporting Stetsons, fringing and leather pants and the King of Fashion, Pharrell Williams, sent a Western collection down the Louis Vuitton menswear runway, recently.
He appeared resplendent in a cowboy hat, bootcut jeans and ostrich boots.
Even Chanel has produced cowboy boots, which means high street brands will be corralling the look into stores faster than you can say, “Yee-haw”, or, “Yee-naw,” depending on your tolerance for linedancing.
Beyonce’s album art has her looking glorious in red, white and blue leather chaps, bodysuit and white Stetson, perched atop a white horse. She followed it up on Instagram with a Lee Van Cleef-esque all-black outfit.
Now, this is not our first rodeo with this particularly challenging trend.
Real cowboys have, of, course, been wearing their hats, bootcut Wranglers and big-buckle-belts since forever.
But unless you want to look like Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy, all out of place in the big city, you can either give the trend the boot with your weirdly-pointy toes and get back on that bus, or heed a word of caution – go gentle into this new look.
You want to be aiming more for Clint-cool than Woody-wear.
Here’s my guide how to navigate the Good, Bad and Ugly of Western-wear:
— DO rock a Stetson: But prepare for everyone you meet to inquire where you left your horse.
— DON’T wear leather pants when it’s hot: Let’s just say it’s … unpleasant.
— DO wear something under your chaps, chaps: Don’t be an arse.
— DON’T lean over a candle: Especially with regard to the above point. Meanwhile, with fringing on everything from tops to jackets and skirts, beware where you lean, particularly over naked flames, or your dinner. It’s Hazzard County and those things dip in everything.
— DO wear one item at a time: A fringed-jacket, cowboy boots or hat, is chic; all three at once and you’ll be achy-breaking everyone’s hearts.
— DON’T try all-white: Unless you are aiming to look like Boss Hogg.
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