Planning on flexing your sartorial muscles in the blog arena? You’ll need to come packing. And no, we’re not referring to your pocket square game. Every week on The Eye, we’ll cover a basic term you need to know right now... before you get laughed off the internet.
Recently it seems like the ultimate litmus test of a man’s style lay in his ability to take something that was once tacky, flip it on it’s head, and turn it into a coveted piece of menswear. A few months back it was the Hawaiian shirt, before that it was bucket hats, and now it’s the western shirt’s time to step into the spotlight. For decades the shirt style was merely thought of as a uniform for TV cowboys, like Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger, or you know, actual cowboys, but it’s now been picked up by a younger, forward-thinking audience who’ve been wearing them with everything from soft-shouldered Italian suits to selvedge denim as a cheeky take on the once dreaded "Canadian Tudo." For as American as the western shirt might seem, it’s origins can actually be found in Mexico.
The attire worn by Mexican cattle herders served as the foundation for the design of the western shirt we know today. The herders, or vaqueros, used to wear traditional Latin American pleated shirts, known as guayaberas, that informed the western shirt’s trademark yoke detail. These were paired with old Civil War uniforms that offered the basis for the shirt’s tailored torso silhouette. Denim, the ol’ cowboy favorite fabric, was used to make the shirts, as tried and true weave had already proved it could take a beating-and-a-half-out on the trail. The denim shirts were originally conceived as a flashy piece of attire that cowboys with a little coin in their pockets could splurge on and when it came to details companies would emblazon bandana patterns or embroidered designs across the front and back. The peacock patterns were initially welcomed by the cowboy community but as the ranching and rodeo industries waned, the shirts were eventually toned down to hit mainstream America.
Taylor Kitsch in Tom Ford’s high-end take on the classic western shirt
The one detail subtle and special enough to remain was the shirt style’s pearl snaps, ensuring a bit of western flair stayed intact through the decades. And while the western shirt first gained wide popularity as fodder for tourists eager to bring back a souvenir from their Texas vacations, the garment slowly worked its way up the ladder of sartorial acceptance. Sure, there were growing pains along the way (read: bad ’80s denim-on-denim with fringe sleeves and the everything oversized ’90s), but in the past few years western shirts have hit their sensible stride, with vintage washed out westerns from the ’70s becoming coveted items. There’s also been a resurgence of companies reinventing the western shirt. And whether it’s Ralph Lauren’s recreation of the style that was once a staple in his own closet or Finamore’s cutaway collar, Italian-meets-American take on the western shirt, the revival is definitely in full swing.
Jake Gallagher writes the blog Wax-Wane. He lives in Manhattan.
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