NEW YORK — Although most urban fashionistas can’t rope a cow, saddle up a horse or ride a mechanical bull, that isn’t stopping city slickers from emulating the signature getup of the likes of Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn.
Chronicled last spring by photographer Lisa Eisner in her 160-page book “Rodeo Girl,” and further glamorized in the fall by Madonna, who donned a cowboy hat and other western gear for the jacket of her “Music” CD, cowgirl chic continues to influence many facets of pop culture, including denim fashions.
While many fashion observers, particularly retailers who have been selling western-inspired merchandise for several seasons, argue such clothing has been popular with women for awhile, many designers and jeans manufacturers are stepping up their “Hee Haw”-esque product offerings for spring and summer.
From New York to Los Angeles, and everywhere in between, department and specialty stores will continue this year to stock hip cowgirl clothes from vendors such as DKNY Jeans, Polo Jeans, ABS by Allen B. Schwartz, Lee and Levi Strauss.
Retailers and manufacturers said cowgirl-inspired clothing is popular with urban women because it conjures up images from yesteryear of a strong, independent and sexy woman such as Dale Evans and Annie Oakley. The current trend of stretch and low-rise jeans also lends itself to cowgirl jeans styles, they added.
“It’s Americana,” said DKNY Jeans president Susan Davidson. “It’s worn and comfortable, yet totally, undeniably sexy. It’s an updated classic that hits the core of the American fantasy.”
Photographer Eisner, a former Vogue editor, agreed: “People will always be attracted to the romance of the New Frontier and the West. No matter where you are from, it is one of the most romantic stories there is, and it is so American.”
Davidson said DKNY Jeans designers were on the cowgirl chuck wagon long before Madonna made it a popular look.
“Madonna’s new look has a lot to do with how country performs at retail and how the consumer accepts it, but we actually designed this line long before her new album came out,” she said.
While denim sales overall were sluggish for many vendors this holiday season, Davidson said the company’s western-inspired products were hot sellers.
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“We offered pants and vests with whipstitch detailing for holiday and that has been performing very well for us,” she said.
Davidson said DKNY Jeans will be offering western wannabes an expanded selection of cowgirl clothes next year.
“Our summer-2001 delivery is very country- cowgirl-inspired,” she said. “We’re offering everything from the ‘Western Jean,’ which is a low-riding jean with western stich detail on the front and back, as well as a worn country-style jean with knee detail and a low-rise, which are frayed at the waistband and the hem.”
Like Davidson, ABS design director Allen B. Schwartz said Madonna may have brought cowgirl chic to the masses, but it is a style his company has been working on for quite some time.
“It is definitely inspired a lot by the Madonna video, but I was on that before the video aired,” he said. “It’s very Americana…and sexy as hell.”
ABS’s spring collection includes low-waist, rhinestone-studded flare jeans and a two-tone “Dale Evans” satin shirt, both of which Schwartz describes as “very Faith Hill.” Other items in the collection are a saddleback skirt with pearl-eye snaps and denim chaps.
Down yonder at Polo Jeans Co., where current cowgirl offerings include studded jeans and western-style embroidery on denim shirts, executives said western-influenced clothing may be hot right now, but it is a look the company is seeking to “redefine.”
“Even though the cowgirl look is really hot right now, we really want to move beyond that,” said creative director Chris Leba. “But on the other hand, I think it will always be a part of our line because it is part of our image.”
Marie Fogel, senior vice president of merchandising and design at Polo Jeans, added: “What we’re trying to do is move her ahead and redefine who she is, so we’re trying to be more modern cowgirl rather than traditional. For our market, that is definitely the way to go.”
The design change at Polo Jeans includes less-obvious salutes to western clothing, said Fogel.
“We’re moving ahead and not necessarily doing cowgirl,” she said. “But we are definitely doing shearling going into next holiday and suede and leather continue to be part of our product line, so when you pair that with our denim…you kind of recapture a very chic and sweet cowgirl look.”
Over at 147-year-old jeans giant Levi’s, designers dipped into the company archives for inspiration. For fall 2001, the Levi’s Vintage Clothing label will re-issue the denim sawtooth shirt, which made its debut in the Fifties. Jimmy Hanrahan, Levi’s director of product publicity, said the shirt has “a zigzag pocket with two notches that look like the teeth of a saw.” Also in the fall, Levi’s will launch a series of re-issued 501s and a “patched and restored” version of the 569.
For spring, Levi’s is introducing a “Wild West” version of its Engineered Jeans, featuring “whiskering at the crotch and on the back of the leg, like the kind you get from riding horses,” said Hanrahan.
He added, “You wouldn’t instantly assume that in the Engineered line there would be a western finish on the denim, but it is a trend that is definitely coming through spring and will probably be going into fall, as well.”
Like his counterparts, Hanrahan said he believes the popularity of western clothing lies in the gutsy image of a cowgirl.
“A cowgirl is a girl that is very independent,” he said. “You think about how those girls were as tough as boot heels and you think about a girl that races barrels.”
At Lee Jeans, the Kansas City, Mo.-based division of VF Corp., the only item currently targeted at cowgirl wannabes is the “cowgirl jean,” a low-waist, five-pocket style with a 16-inch bottom opening, scheduled to ship with the company’s spring shipments.
“The cowgirl jeans actually came about because everything is so flare now, so we were looking at what comes after the flare,” said Betsy Pike-Zanjani, Lee Jeans trend director for female apparel. “This is really a very new body for us. It has a sexy tight fit, so it’s not like a goofy cowboy fit.”
Despite the popularity of cowgirl-inspired jeans, Pike-Zanjani said the company was unable to sell retailers on a complete western collection for spring, which included jeans, denim skirts and belts.
“We had a collection in misses’ under the Riveted by Lee label of a total western group and we pre-lined over the last couple of weeks and the group fell out,” she said.
Pike-Zanjani said the appeal of cowgirl clothing is that “it is going back and looking at Americana in a hip way.” But she joked, the perceived sex appeal of cowgirls may be overstated.
“It’s hard to ask someone who lives in Kansas City,” she said. “(Cowgirls) are pretty darn repulsive, so it’s hard to see the glamour in it…but sure, there’s that strong woman thing.”
Another frontier favorite, Wrangler, also part of VF Corp., manufactures five styles — classic, slim, relaxed, low-rise and bareback — of its signature Cowboy Cut jeans for women.
Angelo LaGrega, president of VF Corp.’s mass market jeanswear division, attributes the popularity of Wrangler’s authentic pioneer image to two factors: symbolism and style.
“I guess it just connotes fun, getting away from it all — it’s kind of an anti-urban statement,” he said. “The jeans also tend to be tighter to the body and I think that whole trend is also evolving anyway.”
Although Lee and Wrangler may be more “authentic” than its higher-end competitors, designers such as Schwartz are not worried about style-savvy shoppers ditching designer labels for down-home duds.
“I don’t think people see those brands as fashion,” he said. “They are not going to come up with rhinestones and flare legs, and cigarette legs and semi-cigarette legs.”
He added that ABS is “big city stuff,” while the likes of Wrangler and Lee is for “down the middle of the country.” Schwartz also said he is not concerned about the increase in companies manufacturing western-styles denim.
“I think there will be people who interpret western their own way, but if they are looking to make another Wrangler or Levi’s and just slap their name on the patch and say ‘this is our new western with a cigarette leg,’ I don’t think that’s the answer,” he said.
While jeans manufacturers are touting cowgirl chic as denim’s “next big thing,” some retailers either said the trend is not a new phenomenon or it is not as far-reaching as believed.
“I wouldn’t say it is becoming more [popular] or it is becoming less [popular], it is just important at this moment,” said Ron Herman, one of the owners at Los Angeles’s Ron Herman-Fred Segal Melrose. “By the time you see it on a Madonna album cover, it has become an established fashion.”
The jeans, cords and blue satin shirt Madonna wore for the “Music” shoot are from RH Vintage, the store’s pricy collection of vintage merchandise. Herman said the jeans Madonna is shown wearing on the CD cost about $1,000.
At American Rag, also located in Los Angeles, denim buyer Norm Adams said he has not noticed an increase in demand for western-styled denim. The store carries a large selection of vintage denim, as well as new merchandise from vendors such as Levi’s and Sergio Valente.
“Honestly, there hasn’t been more interest,” Adams said. “Demand has not been over the top.”
At Saks Fifth Avenue, which will carry some of ABS’s western-inspired spring merchandise, New York-based buyer Chuck Anderson downplayed the importance of the cowgirl chic look.
“That’s not really a look for us because our customer is much more cleaned up than that, in terms of the denim category,” Anderson said. “We’re carrying lots of denim for spring, but I don’t know how much of it is western-influenced — there’s not a whole lot.”
Several blocks downtown, however, in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, there is one hip hot-spot benefiting from the current cowgirl craze: Hogs & Heifers — the bar in the movie “Coyote Ugly” is allegedly modeled after the gritty watering hole, which features a crew of gutsy — and well-endowed — babes decked out in cowgirl attire.
Manager Mick McGee said he has recently noticed an increase in the number of female patrons wearing cowgirl-inspired clothing instead of their traditional downtown duds.
“I think it gives them more of an edge…they are not wearing your typical New York woman outfit, like all black,” the eight-year bar veteran said. “But they look good, I’ll tell you that.”