Western Wear

[bburtner@moran]

Do people dressed in western wear stand out in your city,town,hamlet etc??

 

[Michaelshane]

You kind of stand out if not dressed western here.lol

 

[carouselvic]

No one would give you a second look.

 

[Lone_Ranger]

Do people dressed in western wear stand out in your city,town,hamlet etc??

Yes, very much. But, I live, "East of the Mississippi."

 

[carouselvic]

In Walmart and grocery stores, kids 3-4 years old will sometimes call me "Cowboy".

 

[bburtner@moran]

I was looking at some of the "riding gear picks" most of them are English,a bit snooty I must say...

 

[ClothesHorse]

Not Here. I grew up west of here and no one would ever look twice. Today below 20F, so I've got my silk wild rag around my neck, gloves, and hat complete. I love winter! And being warm.

CH

 

[Highlander]

In Hannibal, Yes... but the dividing line in Missouri is Highway 63. I grew up West of 63 and Cowboy hats and boots are pretty much the norm on that side of the state. Even many of the bankers will wear boots or hats some. The difference between the St. Louis side of the State and the Kansas City/St.Joseph side.

 

[Dinerman]

Certain westernwear stands out here. My boots and belt don't, but most cowboy hats would. I say most because I wear my bound brim '30s Stetson No. 1 quality without getting a second look- the style is so far removed from what's thought of today as a cowboy hat as to be almost unrecognizable by the general public.

A Japanese (Real McCoys, I think) repro of an old Levis shirt. No one's really making this style anymore, so it doesn't stick out as western.

I'll shortly have everything this guy's wearing- and like I say- this look is far enough removed from what is thought of as "western" today to not look terribly out of place here and now.

 

[celtic]

in the rural areas of upstate NY you see more of it, but in the city-fied places you'd be looked at oddly.

i do see some men wearing cowboy boots and hats, but it's a rarity.

 

[Havana]

I don't think it's really an east/west thing anymore. I believe it's much more of a rural/urban thing these days. I live in a rural area in the east with lots of farms and small cattle operations. Western wear from hats to boots is not at all an unusual sight. It's actually more of the norm. If you wear western clothing and venture into an urban area, you'll definitely find yourself standing out more. I call it the McCloud Effect. The "sophisticated" urbanites will see your "primitive and outdated" dress as quaint and more of a costume because tv and movies are their only points of cultural reference. It's the same when wearing a fedora. Fedora = Indiana Jones. Fedora and trench coat = Bogart, ect.

 

[WideBrimm]

In Colorado no one will give you a second look for wearing western, even on 17th Street (financial district) downtown Denver. Even so, lots more people wore cowboy hats say 20 years ago than do nowadays. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is a Coloradoan and often sports boots, hat, and a bolo tie, even in Washington.

 

[Feraud]

I'll shortly have everything this guy's wearing- and like I say- this look is far enough removed from what is thought of as "western" today to not look terribly out of place here and now.

That is a great photo. I hope you are getting the horse and dog too!

 

[HarpPlayerGene]

Nope, not here. In Miami, maybe, but in a lot of inland parts of Florida there is still a lot of agriculture. Also cattle and dairy farms, as well as horse racing and show horse activities in a variety of forms. Plenty of rodeos too. I live not too far down the road from Ocala where the horse industry can be measured into the billions of dollars.

When the fam' first moved to Orlando (Pine Hills) in '71, it was still very rural. The land I grew up on is all factories now but back then we wore cowboy hats and boots every day, we rode our horses and took rent from folks raising quarter horses on our property. I lived in those duds from age 7 to 17ish and still enjoy donning that look each week on my self-imposed 'Western Wednesdays'.

 

[bburtner@moran]

Same here there "harp player" Staten Island NY,is one of the five borough`s in NYC,prior to the building of the "gangplank"that connects us to Brooklyn 1964 that is,we were quite rural,farms,quite a few horse stables,in the small town I was raised we had a stable and the old man used to pass by the house in his wagon and 2 dapples to cut salt hay.Those were the days!Now SINY has been basterdized,rows of ticky tacky houses,cheaply built,no property what so ever.It`s sad for someone like myself who`s family traces there roots back to the 1680`s here on the Island(as we call it).I still have my Nocona boots though,when I had a horse,just can`t seem to part with them,and my first Martin guitar....

 

[Highlander]

My Grandfather had a matched pair of Dapple Grey Draft horses. I'll have to look for a photo of them. He always had a good cuttin' horse too.

 

[DapperDuck]

I don't think it's really an east/west thing anymore. I believe it's much more of a rural/urban thing these days. I live in a rural area in the east with lots of farms and small cattle operations. Western wear from hats to boots is not at all an unusual sight. It's actually more of the norm. If you wear western clothing and venture into an urban area, you'll definitely find yourself standing out more. I call it the McCloud Effect. The "sophisticated" urbanites will see your "primitive and outdated" dress as quaint and more of a costume because tv and movies are their only points of cultural reference. It's the same when wearing a fedora. Fedora = Indiana Jones. Fedora and trench coat = Bogart, ect.

I think you make a good point. I have noticed that western is more common in rule areas here in the east. But it is still quite rare and only worn by the a gutsy few or horse people who are into western riding. A tee shirt and jeans or anything carhartt is what I have noticed here in Virginia.

Personally, I wish more people would wear western in the east. I'm starting to think that Open Road hat I bought (with a cattleman's crease) isn't so at home here in the east.

 

[High Pockets]

Do people dressed in western wear stand out in your city,town,hamlet etc??

Nope,......it's quite normal here.



I took a trip up to L.I. to visit a few relatives many years ago and while standing at a Juke-box I heard one of the local comedians hollar from across the bar;
"Aaaye,.....weeahs yi uawss?"

I've always hoped he kept his day-job.

 

[Mr Badger]

I love to wear Rockmount shirts here in the UK, and also have a great repro Wrangler Blue Bell denim 'rodeo' jacket with the 'Shirts, Jackets, Jeans' chainstitch on the back, which I wear with a matching pair of the '47 button fly jeans. However, over this side of the pond, you just get lumped in with the line-dancing crowd.

Am I alone in finding 'bad' western & hawaiian shirts (no attention to detail, horrible patterns or material, etc) quite offensive to look at, when you see peeps wearing them, as opposed to folks who just look gumby-ish in their polar fleeces, etc, who just blend into the general aesthetic morass? There's a rash of very poor garments like this on the UK 'High Street' at the mo', and it really winds me up! Having said that, when Urban Outfitters in London did start stocking Rockmount shirts, they were selling them for £70, no wonder they ended up in the sale (where I bought 'em)! I emailed the guy who runs Rockmount and told him about it, cos I figured that he'd wanna know, and he was amazed...

 

[Edward]

I love to wear Rockmount shirts here in the UK, and also have a great repro Wrangler Blue Bell denim 'rodeo' jacket with the 'Shirts, Jackets, Jeans' chainstitch on the back, which I wear with a matching pair of the '47 button fly jeans. However, over this side of the pond, you just get lumped in with the line-dancing crowd.

Am I alone in finding 'bad' western & hawaiian shirts (no attention to detail, horrible patterns or material, etc) quite offensive to look at, when you see peeps wearing them, as opposed to folks who just look gumby-ish in their polar fleeces, etc, who just blend into the general aesthetic morass? There's a rash of very poor garments like this on the UK 'High Street' at the mo', and it really winds me up! Having said that, when Urban Outfitters in London did start stocking Rockmount shirts, they were selling them for £70, no wonder they ended up in the sale (where I bought 'em)! I emailed the guy who runs Rockmount and told him about it, cos I figured that he'd wanna know, and he was amazed...

The big problem with Western wear over here is that most of it is so cartoonish.... I'm not one for the cowboy look myself, but I've always fancied some of the Western shirts (I like to think it's a rockabilly thing, but more likely the imprint in my mind is of photos of Joe Strummer on the Clash's first US tour...). I like the relatively plain ones - one bold colour with the piping, not all embroidered roses and yee-haw guns and horses etc.... The other thing that putd me off is that so many of them I see on rockabilly wbsites are marked "dry clean only" - no way am I going that far for a shirt that I can only wear a day before it needs done again!

The more obvious cowboy stuff is, yes, lumped in with the line dancers.... though what they wear tends to be too far cartoonish for me anyhow, so I'm quite happy to leave them to those line dancer folks running about with the Conferderate Battle Flag and no appreciation of its historical significance (seriously, most of them I've encountered think it's just some sort of a cowboy flag.... eep).