How the West Was Worn (Again): Dallas Is All About Hoity Tonk Style

They’re a little bit country. They’re a little bit rock 'n' roll. They’re a little bit Alexis (Rose, of Schitt’s Creek fame). This trend-conscious tribe might label themselves boho — Texas division, but we have an even better term to describe a sleight-of-hand style with a luxurious twang: #hoitytonk.

Front row at The Texas Gentlemen show, you’ll find the ladies clad in artfully ripped jeans, floaty tops, $1,400 brushed beaver hats and colorful Miron Crosby boots. For the guys? Swap the blouse for a pearl-button shirt, a vintage Hermès scarf, plus a lot more accessories.

“It’s mixing designer with Wranglers; it’s a used beat-up boot and a bolo tie with a little '70s dress like Kacey Musgraves,” says Dolly Python owner Gretchen Bell, who has sold to Musgraves as well as country artist Nikki Lane and Lana Del Rey, who recently visited the shop.

“It’s a Brittany Cobb thing: she created Flea Style," Bell says. "She’d put on a modified Chanel scarf with a Stetson hat. [For men] it’s like the Lost Boys showed up in Yellowstone, a younger guy trying to experiment with his look and try to be a little bit Leon Bridges and a little bit rock 'n' roll.”

Forty Five Ten marketing director Jonathan Merla says he’s noticed the West has permeated all ends of the fashion spectrum, from well-loved Luccheses available at Dolly for $150 to Maison Martin Margiela’s tabi cowboy boots that retail for $1,890.

“Few clothes give a sense of place anymore, and I think with Western, you know clearly what this comes from and what it’s trying to say,” Merla says of a trend he’s spotted everywhere from the streets of Dallas to New York’s Dimes Square neighborhood. “Post-pandemic, people are shopping with a little bit more expression in silhouette and color, and the thing that sticks out with the most character is Western wear.”

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment the cowboy chic redux kicked off, but there were a few signposts along the way. It's now become the unofficial uniform of Dallas' creative class, from musicians Jonathan Tyler and Charley Crockett to anyone vying for a spot on a musician's arm.
Stylist and Penny Lane Vintage store owner Sarah Bull cites 2019’s rap-meets-country “Yee Haw Agenda” as a crucial point when Western got creative.

“When did the floodgates open?” muses Bull, who has styled musicians such as Leon Bridges and Abraham Alexander. “When Lil Nas X and that crossover between rap and country happened, it brought a whole new element and surplus of different people [to Western wear]. Now we’ve got Beyoncé in a fringe cowboy hat and glitter on stage. It’s blending classic country glam in a modern way of dressing down but dressing out.”

At least locally, the opening of Uptown’s restaurant/venue The Rustic a decade ago helped give Dallasites a gathering place to show off their style. Created by FreeRange Concepts’ Kyle Noonan and Josh Sepkowitz with musician Pat Green, the sprawling space screams “Texas” from the moment you belly up to the bar backed by a giant American flag crafted of beer cans. Observer editor Eva Raggio coined the term "hoity tonk" in 2014 to describe The Rustic's upscale Western.

The idea for The Rustic started with a blue-sky moment. The partners were in the Hill Country on a bachelor party retreat, grilling steaks and listening to tunes under a big oak tree.

“I looked at [Josh] and said, ‘We need to bottle this experience and open a restaurant around this vibe — music, friends, oak tree, big stars,’” Noonan, a California native, recalls. “I think everybody has that nostalgic memory from a childhood campfire, even if you’re a city boy. The whole Texas vibe just bubbles up.”

From the start, he wanted the space to possess a patina like “a really nice, expensive pair of boots that have been worn and just gotten better with the wear and tear.” And patrons followed suit. The homey environs made a mix of fashionable 20-somethings and suited businessmen eager to pull out those boots from the back of their closets.

The Rustic was so successful that the partners have opened Houston and San Antonio branches, with outposts in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Southern California in the works.

By the time hipsters were mingling with ranch hands on The Rustic’s lawn, local entrepreneur Brittany Cobb had parlayed her passion for flea market furnishings into a pop-up called The Dallas Flea. In 2015, she rebranded the concept to become Flea Style, eventually launching a store and studio in Deep Ellum that sells a mix of flowy dresses, dusters and tops.

A California native, Cobb originally moved to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University. She says her look naturally aligns with the popular #coastalcowgirl TikTok trend, an easy, breezy aesthetic with classic roots that has more than 215 million views on the app.

“I don’t even infuse myself into a trend a lot, but when I step back, I go, wow, we really set the tone and paved the way for a lot of this,” Cobb says. “It’s an iconic Western heritage look with more casual laid-back California bohemian undertones. That’s how I’ve dressed my whole life, and that’s how it’s so natural to me and the brand. When I moved to Texas for college, all I knew was blending with this Texas lifestyle, and it just became a way of life to me.”

Cobb, who naturally gravitated to wearing hats to protect her sun-sensitive skin, added a hat bar to the Flea concept during the COVID shutdown. Allowing patrons to create one-of-a-kind looks on their custom “Brittany” wide-brim hats (with feathers, charms or playing cards), she launched on National Hat Day: Jan. 15, 2021.

Now, hat bars with prices ranging from $78 to the low $200s are available at all current locations (Deep Ellum; the Star in Frisco; the Drover Hotel in Fort Worth; the Dallas Galleria; Louisville, Kentucky; and a mobile bar/boutique). Flea Style is launching 16,000 styles for the holiday season in shades such as dusty denim and deep berry.

The same year Cobb made Flea Style a thing, Leon Bridges began blowing up, making an impact with his soulful sound and Southern style: high-waisted pants and statement jackets. Along for the journey to superstardom was Bridges’ touring photographer Rambo Elliott, whose personal high/low mix of vintage and Western helped inspire the musician’s retro style.

Elliott, who was working in the medical field but longing for something more creative, approached the pre-fame Bridges on Facebook and started photographing him for fun.

“I just felt like our styles would work well together, and we ended up hanging out for 14 hours,” she recalls of that first meeting. Together, the duo made an impact from the beginning, but people weren’t picking up what they were putting down, stylistically speaking.

“People thought we looked goofy as fuck, and made comments,” she says. “Then Leon signed a three-record deal, and there was no room for doubt. Together, we’re such an iconic duo — I can’t tell you the amount of times we’ve walked in a place, and people were like, ‘Y'all really dress like that?’” Elliott put her passion for Hollywood glamour into the looks she helped Bridges pull together. Most notably, a pair of silk gloves from her wedding day the musician wore for the back cover of his second album, Good Thing. Soon, other artists, including Jon Batiste and Abraham Alexander, were asking her to distill this sartorial magic for them. Elliott began working with brands like Stetson and Dickies, while Bridges launched a 2022 clothing collection for Wrangler.

Even if she’s wearing a ballgown with her boots, Elliott insists every piece of her style has functionality crucial to the look. Hats shade her head, jeans protect her legs and every piece she mixes — vintage or new — needs to be proven in its timeless style and durability.

“I have traveled around the world three times now, and I’ve learned I need clothes that can handle any situation,” she says. “I’m always going to have rough jeans that can climb a fence, but I’m a smart girl, so I’m gonna put a silk gown in my suitcase that will pack up small and feel like pajamas.”

It’s this laissez-faire combination that makes Elliott’s modern twist on Western work for a variety of stylistic vibes. Recent transplants to Texas may be tempted to embrace hoity-tonk head to toe, but keeping things rough around the edges and adding vintage to the mix is the best way to avoid any elements of cosplay.

“My clients come in and want a cowgirl look, but they don’t want it campy or costumey; they want it elevated and chic,” says local “denim whisperer” Caitlin Brax of AA Vintedge, who went viral on TikTok for her ability to size up a customer on sight. “I think the resurgence of the brand Wrangler has made vintage jeans more covetable. A lot of clients who [buy jeans to] do a Denim and Diamonds party, and they’ll end up incorporating them in their everyday wardrobe as well.”

“When things go too trendy with really bright colors and a lot of bling, to me, it isn’t elevated,” says Brittany Cobb. “Perfectly imperfect is my favorite thing to say. Either it’s the old patina on a piece of brass or distressing on a denim jacket. That’s so much more interesting than something you can get new.”

In other words, it’s OK to double down on your denim occasionally but turn down the bling. And — for goodness’ sake —take off your view-blocking topper in a restaurant. Though classic etiquette dictates that women never remove their evening hats, cowboys take their hats off indoors. And everyone from Dolly’s Gretchen Bell to fashion influencer Courtney Courtney Noonan cites the cautionary tale of what not to do, as told by the 2019 Saturday Night Live skit “Big Dumb Hat.”

“I cannot stand those stupid hats, especially when people are wearing them at night — it’s like wearing sunglasses inside for me,” says “Bravolebrity” Courtney Noonan (formerly Kerr), who appeared on a few Bravo reality shows including The Millionaire Matchmaker. She was raised in Fort Worth and is married to Kyle Noonan. “When people come here and buy the hat and the boots and are like, ‘Let’s go to the Stockyards,’ it doesn't feel authentic to me," she says. "It can feel like a character versus putting something on that makes you feel beautiful, polished and chic.”

Courtney Noonan prefers classics like well-fitting denim, oversized blazers with leggings or a little black dress with the perfect boots. Her wardrobe contains everything from French designer Isabel Marant to Tecovas, Lucchese and locally based favorites Miron Crosby.

Founded by West Texas sisters Sarah Means and Lizzie Means Duplantis, the latter brand has thrived since opening in 2016, with shops in Highland Park Village; Palm Beach, Florida; Aspen, Colorado; and Houston. Its hand-tooled styles are beloved by socialites and Vogue editors equally, who snap up multiple pairs in shimmering metallics decorated with all the stars of a prairie sky.
“One of the reasons we started the brand was because the fabulous French and Italian brands were doing so well [selling boots],” says Sarah Means. “We felt like, why are people buying Isabel Marant? There was a hole in the marketplace for contemporary luxury.”

“We feel [Western] always needs a seat at the fashion table, and we’re doing everything we can to make that happen,” adds her sister.

It’s clear setting one's style apart from a gaggle of bachelorettes in Fort Worth's Mule Alley would require a bigger budget. Rodger Chieffalo has built a successful business by curating extremely luxurious pieces his customers can’t find anywhere else at his three-year-old Chieffalo Americana boutique in Fort Worth. The real estate developer initially got into fashion through his collection of rebuilt classic beaver hats in the style of Fort Worth Star-Telegram founder Amon Carter.

“I thought [of making them] just as a hobby, as a fun thing,” says Chieffalo, who runs the shop with his wife, Jackie. “I was gonna see how much I could make a trend of these short-brim hats, and now every Tom, Dick, and Harry 28-year-old in Austin is wearing them.”

Far from a big, dumb hat, these short-brimmed styles, which Chieffalo says are collected by “movie stars, musicians and politicians at the highest level,” flew off the shelves. Now, the duo offers repurposed Hermès, Gucci, and Versace scarves for a fancy version of the cowboy “wild rag,” tailored Gambert shirts in casual fabrics and $2,000 blanket coats by Lindsey Thornburg. The limited-edition nature and handcrafted appeal of their stock are what sets this luxe end of the look apart, according to the Chieffalos.

“It isn’t fast fashion by its nature,” Jackie Chieffalo says. “It's a sign of luxury you can even wait for your custom boots that aren’t going to fit anyone else. Even our hat style is the ranch owner’s hat, and there’s a differentiation between the cowboy and the ranch owners. If you have the small hat, you own the ranch.”

And even if you don’t, you can still aspire to look like you do. Two young entrepreneurs banking on hoity tonk having legs are photographer/designer Cal Knapp and stylist Dalton Rhode. Earlier this summer, the duo opened Vagabond Hats in the Cedars, named after their propensity to collect trinkets, feathers and exotic leathers from across the globe to adorn their headgear.

Knapp initially got into millinery as a side hustle and partnered with Rhodes after meeting him at NorthPark's John Varvatos boutique. Now, the partners craft their beaver felt hats full-time, adding rich accents such as snakeskin, African mud cloth and sterling silver jewelry. Ranging from $1,200 to $1,600, the styles are hand-distressed and made to reflect the wearer's personality.

Says Knapp, “Our goal is to create something that blurs the line between country and rock 'n' roll. You can wear a dirty, ripped pair of jeans with one of these hats, or you can go the Grammys or Country Music Awards. You can wear it on a ranch in the rain or take it onstage and perform for a sold-out arena.”

Or you can just put one on for cocktails at El Carlos Elegante. Just remember to take it off once you cross the threshold.

As trendy as hoity tonk may currently be, for both the purveyors and the consumers of nouveau riche Western, the authenticity in the garments is what gives the look legs. Fashionistas might not embrace Yellowstone's home-on-the-range look in a season or two. Still, a handcrafted hat, a sturdy pair of boots and the perfect pair of weathered jeans will never go out of fashion in Big D — or anywhere else, for that matter.

“Any city that birthed Neiman Marcus and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and J.R. Ewing and Mary Kay is going to have a little bit of desire to show off some luxury,” Kyle Noonan says. “A lot of things that came out of this city are influential on style, not just in Texas but globally.”

“I don't think it’s a flash-in-the-pan trend; [Western] is here to stay,” adds Brittany Cobb. “Texas is bringing so many people from all over the country, and people are really adopting and loving this classic way of dressing.”