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IS IT JUST US, or have the worlds of fashion and entertainment developed a whole new twang ? We heard it at a pre-Grammys party, when Lana Del Rey announced that her next release would be a country album called Lasso. We saw it on Grammy night itself, when Beyoncé sparkled in a bespoke version of a look from Louis Vuitton’s autumn/winter 2024 menswear collection, plus an unmissable ivor y Stetson. And we got the message loud and clear in the look and sound of the first two singles from Beyoncé’s forthcoming album. Visuals for Texas Hold ’Em and 16 Carriages both feature the superstar wearing cowboy hats – because, as Del Rey said during her Lasso reveal, ‘We’re going country… It’s happening.’
It sure is. ‘Going country’ can mean different things to different people. It can mean Margot Robbie wearing a hot-pink cowgirl hat in Barbie. Or Kim Kardashian playing dress-up for a pre-Super Bowl party in her own 10-gallon hat. Or Miley Cyrus paying tribute to godmother Dolly Parton with her Grammys hair. Or Sienna Miller saddling up for Horizon, Kevin Costner’s two-part Western epic. Or indie supergroup Boygenius recording a cover of The Chicks’ Cowboy Take Me Away. Or Bella Hadid dating an actual, real-life cowboy. Remember, too, that cultural omnipresence Taylor Swift got her start in Nashville (she was ahead of the cur ve).
That’s without even beginning to plumb the cultural power of Yellowstone and its spin-offs, all centred around a family of Montana ranchers. The costumes – hats, boots, jeans, big belt buckles, shearling galore – have been insanely influential. ‘Everyone’s doing a take on Western wear right now,’ costume designer Johnetta Wheeler has said of her work, which mixes staples from Wrangler and Levi’s with a little something extra from Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Ulla Johnson. No wonder denim shirts, Western boots and fringed suede jackets have been high-street hits for seasons now.
None of this should come as a complete surprise. Considered in retrospect, the mirrored horse Beyoncé flew around her Renaissance tour concerts looks a lot like a hint about her next album’s direction (the horse is named Reneigh, because of course). Go back further, and Daddy Lessons from 2016’s Lemonade sounds like a promise of more country to come. Her reclamation of country as Black-roots music has a name : the Yeehaw Agenda.
In fact, what’s notable about the coming country music boom isn’t that it’s happening ; it’s that it’s led by women and people of colour, both oft-ignored segments of t
