The Cowboy Hat
This week's ONE-PIECE is all about the humble cowboy hat. Why is it trending now, who's wearing it and how can you wear it, too?
Welcome to our first, weekly, ONE-PIECE newsletter. Each week I’ll be selecting a garment, accessory or trend to analyse and style in the hope that you’ll find something new or interesting to play around with in your own wardrobe. This week, it’s all about cowboy hats.
If you like what you’re reading and want to support me in seeing this newsletter hit your inbox each week, please consider sharing it with a friend you think might enjoy reading it too.
Cowboy culture is about to take the world by storm. The humble cowboy hat is an accessory that builds character—minus the greed and revenge you find in typical Western movies.
Dust off your Stetsons and Akubras, or get your hands on whatever ten-gallon hat you can find. Today might be the last day to be ahead of the impending return of the Western trend. You can’t stop it from happening. The only option is to either jump on board this ho-heying bandwagon or get left behind.
Celebrities & Brands Embracing It
In January, Pharrell Williams presented his second collection for Louis Vuitton. If you missed my review, it was a celebration of the original cowboys who were Black and Native American. This high-fashion interpretation of a Rodeo show left me wanting more!
February saw Beyoncé sport a custom Louis Vuitton by Pharrell Williams look to the Grammys. A week later, she announced her new album, Cowboy Carter, with a Wild West teaser. Since then, she hasn’t been spotted without paying homage to her Texan roots; always in a cowboy hat.
Since then, Lana Del Rey has announced she will be releasing her own country album. Robert Downey Jr. wore a western Louis Vuitton suit and bolo tie to the Oscars. On the same red carpet, Colman Domingo, Simu Liu and Ryan Gosling also played with Western details in shape, shoe choice and embellishments. Peso Pluma wore a silver tip-collared shirt under a black suit with Western embroidery to the Grammys.
Miuccia Prada has released her own cowboy hat under Miu Miu this season and previously toyed with her own version of the bolo tie under Prada. Plus, Orville Peck has collaborated with Christian Dior for a custom cowboy hat in the House’s iconic oblique print. And it’s only March!
3 Easy Ways to Wear a Cowboy Hat
I don’t want you to get the idea that cowboy hats are just for celebrities and those who actually live in the Australian outback or American West into your head. I recently purchased a vintage cowboy hat from Route 66. I felt myself stand up straighter when I tried it on. I carried myself differently.
When it comes to styling, I like to make sure that the cowboy hat is the centrepiece. You can play around with texture and fit but remember to keep it simple. The hat is a bold statement on its own, so you don’t need to add much to make it sing.
Here are 3 ways you can easily style it with clothes you may already have in your wardrobe (with extras if you want to buy something new):
The Everyday: Wear clothes you would wear to run errands around town and add your cowboy hat to them. For example, wear a hoodie and exercise shorts, a shirt and jeans, or a tee and cargo pants. If you’re in the market to add some new basics to your wardrobe, I’ve popped what I’d buy to complete this look below.
Pictured: I’m wearing a Geedup Co. hoodie, Ten Pieces basketball shorts, and Burberry cowboy boots with my Route 66 vintage cowboy hat and an Oroton scarf. My shopping links will take you to The Iconic for a Pull&Bear hoodie and Maillot for Goldwin light cargo shorts.
Denim Daze: The Canadian tuxedo. Get your denim shirt or jacket out and match it with the same, or similar shade, jeans. The light and darker shades of blue denim will go with almost any colour cowboy hat. If you want to keep it ultra chic, a black cowboy hat with a black denim set is all class.
The fit of your jeans should depend on what you want to wear up top. If you want something fitted, tuck a denim shirt into fitted jeans and add a belt. If you’re like me and prefer looser-fitting clothes, then go for wide-leg jeans which will suit denim shirts and jackets alike.
Pictured: I’m wearing a charcoal denim workwear shirt from Nique, black jeans from Wynn Hamlyn and Prada loafers with my Route 66 cowboy hat. My shopping links will take you to Calvin Klein for a jacket and jeans set (these are on sale).
Suit and Tie: In the Wild West, this translates to jackets with big lapels and a bolo over traditional ties. If you have a black suit in your wardrobe, you should think about adding your cowboy hat for your next occasion and style it over a white shirt and a tie (either bolo, ribbon or regular). If you’re in the market to buy something new, Louis Vuitton’s FW24 collection should hit stores in a few months.
Pictured: I’m wearing a suit from Dries Van Noten, a bolo tie from Prada and Balenciaga boots. My shopping links take you to MR PORTER for a YSL suit jacket, pants and RM Williams shoes.
Red Carpet: I wanted to add a fourth concept in here just for fun. When it comes to red carpet fashion, anything goes. The rule for keeping it simple under the brim of a cowboy hat goes out the door. I fell in love with a sparkling look from Stella McCartney’s FW24 runway and think it would look otherworldly with a custom cowboy hat. I’d add a belt around the hat in the same texture, or bring some type of motif from Stella’s fabric to it without making the whole hat out of the same material.
Additionally, I could also see these looks from Dries Van Noten, Amiri and Etro, respectively, be turned western with the additional of a cowboy hat.
Pictured: My shotty photoshop skills, Stella McCartney, Dries Van Noten, Amiri and Etro looks from their FW24 fashion shows.
If you’re ready to give a cowboy hat a chance, I recommend checking out Route 66 for both inexpensive replicas and vintage originals. If you want something new, Strand Hatters, located in Sydney’s iconic Strand Arcade, has plenty of Western options for you to try on. Lack of Colour also has options that are fashion-focused over tradition.
Your ONE-PIECE
In this section, I spotlight someone who I’ve noticed wearing our focus ONE-PIECE. Meet Jaycee Mentoor, a New Zealand-based photographer who traded in the big city of Sydney for country life in a rural town outside of Auckland.
When it comes to wearing his hat out, Jaycee likes to keep it simple. “I don't really like to think too much about it. For any look, to have a cowboy hat on kind of demands some kind of sheriffy "this is my town" energy. I don't really like to do too much because it's already doing a lot.
“I want to still walk the line of an aesthetic that would be cohesive with the hat, but a lot of the time, I just wear whatever I really want. I could do a full black tailored suit, no shirt underneath [with] the cowboy hat. I have fun with it.”
When I spoke with Jaycee, we tried to dissect why we both feel a strong pull towards cowboy hats.
“I think that there's something so inherently gay about cowboys, and I love that,” he says. “I remember one of the most powerful advertisements to me as a young teenager, just even on Tumblr, was the Marlboro ads of the Marlboro cowboy. Obviously, the message was not great, but the aesthetic world that they had built up was fantastic. It's this marriage of queerness and gayness and masculinity, and that really, really uncomfortable stage of, "Will they? Won't they?" That's the whole aesthetic to me.”
I wonder if it is something magnified by the gay cowboy art made famous by artists like George Quaintance and Tom of Finland or the idea that, a few decades ago, two men could never openly exist together, and it is from that place of denial that these extreme masculine homoerotic symbols come from.
“I think that everybody should own a cowboy hat. “I always want people to feel really good about themselves. So if it inspires you to buy a hat, then go for it. Get yourself the biggest cowboy hat known to man. If you need a little boost, wear a cowboy hat. You're all good.”
If you have a garment, accessory or styling technique you want me to explore, drop it in the comments! A Cowboy Hat? No worries. Three-quarter shorts? Consider it done. Whatever you do, subscribe now so you can have ONE-PIECE come directly to you in your inbox.
P.S. Stream Cowboy Carter on your favourite streaming platform as of tomorrow (March 29th, 2024)!