The Evolution of Western Wear
How the cowboy introduced America's only indigenous fashion category.
By: G. Daniel DeWeese 07/20/2009
A city kid visiting the West eyes a cowboy up and down, then asks him, “Mister, why do you wear a big hat?”
“My hat protects my head from the sun, the rain, the wind and the cold,” the cowboy replies.
The kid considers that for a moment, then asks, “Why do you wear that vest?”
“Well, my vest has lots of pockets where I can keep things I need handy,” the cowboy explains. “It also frees up my arms to throw a rope.”
The kid points at the cowboy’s chaps, and asks, “What are these funny leather things on your legs?”
“They’re chaps,” replies the cowboy. “They protect my legs from cactus and thorny bushes.”
Then the kid looks at the cowboy’s feet. “I thought cowboys wore boots?” the kid points out. “What’s up with the running shoes you’re wearing?”
“That’s so nobody thinks I’m a trucker,” the cowboy replies.
As suggested by this joke, the unique clothes worn by cowboys and ranch hands help them do their work and protect them from their work environment, which is anywhere cattle can graze. Thanks to dime novels, Wild West shows, movies, Country music and other forms of mass entertainment, the cowboy has attained mythic stature in the American saga. Mixed in with leather-clad mountain men, fearless Indian fighters, daring outlaws and legendary lawmen, the cowboy still represents the Old West.
In addition to his independence, courage and resourcefulness, the cowboy is celebrated for his signature attire. In reality, his clothes were both shaped and limited by his circumstances, the goods available to him and his choice of profession. The 19th-century cowboy’s wardrobe may have been limited—as was his reign of the plains—but he would cut a dashing figure across screens and the imaginations of people around the world.
The American cowboy would become our greatest national hero, and his clothing, America’s only indigenous fashion category: Western wear.
Original Cowpuncher’s Outfit
With some regional and individual differences, an Old West cowboy’s basic getup consisted of tall boots with big-roweled spurs, wool or cotton trousers under leather chaps, a nondescript shirt under a waistcoat or vest, an oversized neckerchief and a wide-brimmed hat. A rain slicker or a duster was often tied to the cantle of his saddle (as well as some form of self-defense, but that’s a whole other topic). Except for the shirt and pants, every piece of a cowboy’s clothing was tailored to the cowboy’s professional needs.
A hodgepodge of cultural and stylistic traditions converged, and frequently clashed, on the Western frontier to create the original cowpuncher’s outfit. The leather shirts, pants and moccasins worn by American Indians were adopted by early European adventurers, including the fabled trappers, mountain men and, later, buffalo hunters. Cowboys had little use for Indian ways; they opted for European uses of leather for boots, belts, gloves and, occasionally, vests and overcoats. Victorian styling was the high fashion of the day, and elements of that buttoned-up ethos naturally influenced the cowboy’s way of dressing—as far as it was practical.
Comments (1)
G. Daniel DeWeese wrote a dandy history of cowboy apparel, but I’d like to add some perspective. America’s western heroes were not always cowboys. Before about 1885, nobody thought drovers were particularly interesting, given that people had been driving animals to market for thousands of years without much fanfare. Instead of cowboys, the country idolized Indian-fighting frontiersmen. Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and John C. Fremont embodied skill, bravery, and values necessary to survive beyond the borders of civilization. Years later, showmen Buffalo Bill Cody, Texas Jack Omohundro, and Pawnee Bill marketed themselves as Indian-fighting “scouts” (not cowboys) and donned stage costumes made of fringed buckskin to evoke their frontiersman-like experiences. Other self-promoting cavaliers of frontier melodrama, particularly Wild Bill Hickok, George A. Custer, and Calamity Jane, groomed their public personas during the 1870s by sporting buckskins, a throwback to celebrated trailblazers. Another decade would pass before cowboys and their distinctive manner of dress became popular. Wild West shows probably did the most to transform America’s favorite folk heroes from wilderness explorers to quick-shooting cowpunchers by aggressively burnishing the cowboy’s shiftless, thieving, troublemaking, image into that of noble white heirs to the frontiersman’s legacy. Throughout the next century, creative fiction and imaginative screenplays portrayed ranch hands as armed moral crusaders on horseback who lived by an imaginary Code of the West. Celluloid cowboys now symbolize frontier America and stylized buckaroo garb has become so fashionable that people around the world indulge their historical fantasies by wearing “western apparel,” making it difficult to believe that most famous Old Westerners did not earn their livings by herding beef.
—Michael H. Piatt, author of Bodie: The Mines Are Looking Well
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