Image credits: Instagram.com/bellahadid

In the great year of 2024, the western trend is no new phenomenon. Back in 2022, Chanel showed their autumn/winter ’22/’23 collection, which featured multiple variations of black cowboy hats, spurring a conversation around the 'goth cowboy' trend. Fast forward to 2023, the year of Beyoncé's Renaissance tour, where, in custom Roberto Cavalli, she nodded to her western-themed album artwork throughout the tour.

Cowboy-adjacent trends have been orbiting the zeitgeist for years, and in 2024, it feels as though they are once again having a moment.  

Louis Vuitton autumn/winter ’24/’25 menswear. Image credits: GoRunway.com

Perhaps the most obvious example in support of the cowboy trend is Louis Vuitton's autumn/winter ’24/’25 menswear show. At the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris, men's creative director Pharrell Williams themed the entire show around cowboy and western motifs, with the intention to expand representation around cowboy imagery which has historically leaned heavily on exclusively white references. 

Image credits: (L) Instagram.com/beyonce and (R) Instagram.com/bellahadid

In pop culture, Margot Robbie popularised the cowboy hat as she galavanted about the Barbie set in a pink western ensemble, while Lana Del Rey has announced that she is gearing up to release a country album in 2024. Beyoncé too—who attended the 2024 Grammy's in ten gallon hat and bolo tie—just this week announced that a country-themed follow-up to Renaissance, Act II, is set to arrive on 29 March. Two new songs titled Texas Hold ’Em and 16 Carriages have since gone online.

(L) Lemaire autumn/winter ’24/’25 menswear and (R) DSquared2 autumn/winter ’24/’25 menswear. Image credits: GoRunway.com

Elsewhere on the runways, western motifs have been cropping up throughout collections. Lemaire made subtle nods to the trend in their autumn/winter ’24/’25 menswear collection with detailed shirt collars in chocolate with turquoise embroidery, while DSquared2 experimented with embellished shirting, western belts, and fringe. 

We are only in the second month of the year, and already it feels as though cowboy energy is everywhere we look. Are we ready for it? Tough to say! I was personally ready for it when Beyoncé released Daddy Lessons in 2016, and when Lana Del Rey took on her own cover of Country Roads, Take Me Home late last year. Though it feels too early to say whether it will be adopted by the masses as liberally as, say, quiet luxury was in 2023.

But the burgeoning cowboy trend doesn't have to take you down the route of exclusively wearing bolo ties and ten-gallon hats, a subtle nod to a "western way" might look like shirt detailing à la Lemaire, or make like Fran Lebowitz and add a casual cowboy boot into your everyday rotation. Keep it simple or go for the whole hog, if you please!

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