This town is only big enough for one trend, and this year, everyone’s going country.
From blockbuster flicks and chart-topping hits to the proliferation of Western wear and cowboy chic, pop culture is inundated with the scenes, songs and styles of the great American West — fitting for a particularly patriotic year for the US, with the success of the Olympics and the upcoming election.
“When you’ve been around for nearly 160 years, you see trends come and go, but this moment does feel different,” Tyler Thoreson, Stetson’s vice president of marketing, told The Post of the iconic hat company, founded in 1865. “The current embrace of Western style represents something deeper than simply being fashion’s flavor of the month.”
Recent data from Pinterest revealed searches for “country glam” have skyrocketed 8,700% from last year, and queries for “Western style outfits” are up 418%, while a new report from the RealReal showed interest in vintage Levi’s denim and fringed leather has increased almost 70%.
Spurred by the March release of Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album — with tracks such as “Texas Hold ‘Em” and a rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” — the trend has only intensified since, with the release of “Tough” by Lana Del Rey featuring Quavo and Post Malone’s country album “F-1 Trillion,” which claimed the No. 1 slot on Spotify’s debut charts last week.
Then, there’s pop sweetheart Sabrina Carpenter’s sixth studio album, “Short n’ Sweet” — which features tunes with a bit of twang such as the single “Slim Pickins” — and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts for multiple weeks.
“If you can’t already tell by our award winners and our performers, the music business is going country. We’re going country. It’s happening,” Del Rey said earlier this year at a pre-Grammys event.
But the pendulum swing isn’t confined to radio hits. Coupled with the release of the Oklahoma-set, tornado-wrangling film “Twisters,” there is a perfect country-western storm that has flooded nearly every aspect of modern-day life.
Indeed, this aptly named “year of yeehaw” extends to fashion, with pieces that can be worn from the ranch to the runway.
Even on the streets of New York City — far from the rodeo — there are bootcut jeans, Western footwear and big buckled belts, with the likes of Hollywood hunk Glen Powell creasing his jeans in true cowboy style, Nick Viall’s “country chic” nuptials and trendsetters like Kim Kardashian and Bella Hadid flaunting cowgirl couture.
Pharrell Williams’ men’s fall 2024 collection for Louis Vuitton saw fringe, leather and cow-print fit for saddling up, coupled with wide-brimmed hats, bolo ties and other desert motifs such as cacti and paisley emblems or turquoise gemstones.
Meanwhile, Schiaparelli took a space cowboy approach to this season’s collection, featuring futuristic designs married with traditional Western shapes and patterns, and Isabel Marant debuted a fall line brimming with fringe and suede.
But the so-called trend is a lifestyle for rural Americans, and the versatility of cowboy-core makes items such as denim a fashion mainstay. In fact, it’s “pretty rare” to find a garment that can be worn on the ranch or the red carpet, John Meagher, vice president of global brand marketing for Wrangler, told The Post.
“Maybe for some people, they just gravitate toward the fashion or they’re more interested in the music and kind of the fusion you’re seeing between country music and mainstream music and crossover artists,” Boot Barn’s creative director and vice president of marketing Isha Nicole told The Post. “Maybe that’s their way into this world.”
And this trend isn’t all hat, no cattle.
“I don’t think this is something that will just come and go and we move on,” Nicole added. “It’s so embedded in what it means to be American.”
So why now, 70 years after the heyday of country-western movies depicting gunslinging saloon regulars and shootouts with fictional outlaws, is the spirit of the American West suddenly back en vogue?
“I think there’s something kind of powerful about saying like, this is an American genre or an American style, an American story, that doesn’t belong to any specific group,” Ryan Hall, an associate professor of Native American studies and history at Colgate University, told The Post.
Indeed, Western style is associated with “something so much larger” than a pair of boots or cowboy-cut denim, Nicole said — it embodies ideal American characteristics: kindness, generosity, loyalty, honesty and homeland pride.
Those values, Meagher said, can resonate no matter if you’re “18 to 21 and you live in Brooklyn or you live in Echo Park, or if you’re ranching in Texas or Wyoming.”
Coupled with yearning for the great outdoors post-pandemic and nostalgia for normalcy in an era of economic hardship, rapid AI advancement and a nation divided, people are looking to the traditional styles of the Great American West.
“To me, putting on a Western hat, denim shirt or pair of cowboy boots is an expression of individuality, but it also connects you to a set of traditions and values that span generations,” Thoreson said. “That’s a powerful combination.”
