The Autry Museum of the American West recently reopened its main exhibit on competing and intersecting narratives of the American West, called the Imagined West.
The cowboy. The Native. The Chicano.
The open space. The suburban sprawl.
The Stetson. The sombreo. The ushanka.
The dynamic exhibit seamlessly showcases intersectionality. It forces visitors to smash preconceived notions of siloed experiences that often happened simultaneously but live in the collective American memory as isolated and complete events. Perhaps most importantly, it presents the American West as something that continues to evolve.
No one group owns this experience, which may be the exhibit’s singular thesis. The entirety of the West belongs to everyone, as no one group can lay claim to its history or future.
In a joke only humorous to history majors, the concept of Orientalism could be applied to the U.S. Occidental experience. Addressed first by critical historian Edward W. Said in his book of the same name, Orientalism is the practice of those in the Western World viewing the Orient, in his case the Middle East, as somehow different, static and therefore worthy of respect but also in need of saving.
While this is an incomplete analysis of the concept, it’s easy to see how this kind of mentality could be applied to such mythical periods in American history. The ethos of the American West is seen as containing rich wisdom lost to history yet still in need of modernization and civilization.
The clothing often worn by those in one or another period codified within this mythology—at least the iconic items like cowboy hats, dusters, working pants, bolo ties and more—can be interpreted as belonging to other people, not modern-day individuals in the modern world, with few exceptions. And those exceptional individuals often are those who do the things made famous by these periods of time—ranching, riding or prospecting—even if they do so in a modern fashion.
Wearing these items signals an otherness outside of what a modern person should wear.
Sitting at my youngest’s preschool graduation, I noticed that one of the rabbis was dressed almost exactly like me. We wore dark blue blazers, light blue shirts and gray slacks. He also sports a shaved head and a gray beard (his slightly whiter than mine).
But I was wearing boots, and my shirt had pearl snaps.
As we joked about our choices, he asked, “Would anything in your life necessitate wearing cowboy boots?”
This question was a bit of a shock.
My choice to express my connection with Western culture through my clothing was completely foreign to him. Yet it is as much a part of my identity as some of the skater or hip-hop culture that influenced many of the other fashion choices made by other middle-aged parents that evening is a part of theirs.
Yet those influences, which also are major elements of American Western culture, are somehow more acceptable within our community.
Candolin Cook, a historian and writer who focuses on Western American history, notes that those “other” influences have been a part of mainstream culture for decades, “so it's not exactly jarring to see kids in the suburbs wearing baggy jeans and Timberlands,” icons of hip-hop culture or even older folks still wearing Vans skate shoes.
She explains that Western wear has traditionally been associated with blue-collar people living in the South and West, which might have been the basis of the rabbi’s question. I clearly am not a blue-collar worker from either of these regions, however, I love the culture, the fashion and what it represents when someone chooses to wear it. And I aim never to slip into cosplay.
In fact, this is the exact reason I was reticent to wear a cowboy hat — somehow, the Stetson was the bridge too far. It’s about ensuring that I’m respecting, not appropriating.
“When what feels like ours is commodified and popularized by the very elite who have looked down on us as uncultured or dumb or trash or uncool, it's frustrating,” Cook said. “But today, it's kind of a case-by-case basis. We love Post Malone and Lil Nas X rocking cowboy core but despise the gals from California who wear pink cowboy hats on their Nashville girls' trip.”
Yet, once I put on that Stetson 10X Felt, it felt right. Perhaps I needed a push to understand that while traditionally it wasn’t for me, no one needs permission to join the American experience.
“Fashion is cyclical, of course, but Western Wear's staying power and cool factor seems pretty unmatched to me,” said Cook. “Especially if you consider how little much of the designs have changed over the years--blue jeans, pearl snaps, cowboy hats remain relatively untouched from when they served utilitarian purposes in the nineteenth century to the Urban Cowboy kicker craze of the 80s to 2024 when they're on catwalks in Paris.”
Put differently, these items aren’t just fashion choices; they are icons of the American experience.