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Runway collections, pop-cultural juggernauts and efforts from more traditional Western-wear companies have coalesced to achieve something the spaghetti Western never could: transforming traditional cowboy attire from something resembling caricature into a staple of the modern wardrobe.
In late March, Beyoncé released country-tinged album ‘Cowboy Carter’, sparking a rush for boots, double denim, ten-gallon hats and whatever else one might wear to a Tennessee honky-tonk.
While the Beyoncé Effect is undeniable: Levi’s stock rose by 20 per cent last week thanks to the ‘Cowboy Carter’ track ‘Levii’s Jeans’ and Google searches for “women’s cowboy boots” shot up 176 per cent since the album’s release. Really, what we’re seeing here is another high point in a consumer movement that’s been bubbling away since the late 2010s.
A recent report from retail data firm Edited illustrates this shift. Comparing SS24 to SS23 releases at various major retailers, Edited found increases in numerous Western-related items, notably a 119 per cent jump in denim shirts, a 64 per cent rise in prairie skirts and a 17 per cent surge in Western-style belts. Belle Nowak, PR coordinator at SE Comms, says she has also seen a swell of “press interest in the Western look”.
‘Cowboycore’ is clearly having a moment, but there’s no quicker way to kill a trend than giving it a name. So how long can we expect this moment to last, and can retailers feel confident continuing to invest?
Furthering the Yee-haw Agenda
For decades, owning a pair of cowboy boots likely meant you lived in the Bible Belt, worked on a ranch, enjoyed country music, or a combination of all three. However, by the late 2010s, New York designers Pyer Moss, LaQuan Smith and Telfar were using runway shows to pay tribute to the largely unknown history of Black cowboys, Lil Nas X was topping the charts with ‘Old Town Road’, Megan Thee Stallion and Lizzo were wearing cowboy couture in their videos, and Solange had dropped a short film full of Western iconography to accompany her album ‘When I Get Home’.
This proliferation of Black artists celebrating country — dubbed the “Yee-haw Agenda” by pop culture commentator Bri Malandro — never really faded. But the Western look certainly received another boost recently via the metallic cowboy ‘tourdrobe’ of Beyoncé’s blockbuster Renaissance world tour, before showing up all over AW24 runways — from Pharrell Williams’s Louis Vuitton collection to Molly Goddard’s knitted Western shirts, Stella McCartney’s leather chaps and Chloé’s fringed jackets and trousers.
Traditional Western brands ride the wave
Western-wear has reached a new era of mainstream acceptance, which is now being reflected in the sales of more traditionally Western brands.
“Last year was one of the best we’ve ever had,” says Taylor Morton, PR manager of Justin Brands, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of Western footwear. Prasad Reddy, CEO of boot company Twisted X, says the brand has seen increased demand, while Sebastian Boekholt, managing director of Stetson Europe, says pop culture moments like the hit neo-Western TV show Yellowstone have increased both awareness and demand for their iconic hats.
This growth isn’t restricted to the US. James Wilson, brand and DTC director at Ariat Europe — a company known for its high-performance Western boots — says the brand has witnessed a hefty 651 per cent increase in “cowboy boot” search terms from within Europe, with festival season unsurprisingly proving a particularly popular time for the brand. Reddy, too, says that Twisted X has seen a jump in demand from Europe, Australia and South America.
While musicians and TV shows play a large part in consumer awareness, this growth is also down to efforts from the industry itself. “We’ve catered to cowboys or ranchers for so long,” says Morton, “and now there’s a movement of, ‘We need to be building a longer table, not a taller fence.’”
As Western-wear companies look to expand into the broader market through updated designs and new marketing techniques, fashion brands are increasingly referencing Western styles in response to the uptick.
Craig Brommers, CMO of American Eagle, says the store has seen a huge rise in interest for Western styles from their predominantly Gen Z audience, with web searches up, cowboy boots among their bestselling footwear and Western belts their most popular offering.
Annamaria Brivio, founder of Paris Texas — whose Paloma boots Beyoncé wears on the cover of ‘Cowboy Carter’ — says, “Today, more than ever, people seek versatile pieces that evoke tradition, trans-seasonality and individuality. Western-wear offers precisely that.”
The Western-style boot has been a “consistent design element” of Ganni’s collections for the past few years, says Ganni creative director Ditte Reffstrup. “I love how [cowboy boots] can add either balance or juxtaposition to any look. They stand the test of time because they’re more of a classic than a trend.”
Reffstrup and Brivio’s points cut to the root of Western-wear’s longevity: it’s timeless — there’s no other look that feels as appropriate today as it did on the Great Plains in 1864 — and its pieces can be worked into the wearer’s wardrobe at whatever volume they feel comfortable. “From a retail point of view, it boasts lots of avenues for reinterpretation, meaning it has seemingly endless shelf life,” says Katharine Carter, research and analysis manager at Edited.
As Carter suggests, while Western-wear is riding the crest of a Beyoncé-sponsored surge, brands would be wise to hop on and reframe their existing denim offerings “under the Western narrative”, or even invest in the trend in future collections.
As festival season fast approaches with Coachella this weekend, analysts are expecting new takes on the Western trend to bubble up. As a key platform for Gen Z outfit planning, Pinterest has already identified twists on traditional cowboy attire, seeing growth from search terms like “grunge cowgirl outfits” (up 460 per cent), “hippie cowgirl style” (up 40 per cent) and the more niche “vampire cowboy” (up 120 per cent), suggesting a direction of travel for the Western trend, even after the Cowboy Carter wave breaks.
