From Rodeo to Runway: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Sparks a Western Fashion Revival
Beyoncé’s 2024 album Cowboy Carter did more than top charts. Cowboy Carter ignited a full-on western wear renaissance across America. In true editorial fashion, we’re breaking down how Queen Bey’s country era has rippled from red carpets to city streets, and from high-fashion runways to everyday wardrobes.
Beyoncé’s Western Fashion Era: Glamour on the Range
In the Cowboy Carter era, the singer’s wardrobe became an ode to western Americana, blending Texan roots with an haute couture flair. Her award show appearances kept the theme: At the 2024 Grammy Awards, she rolled in wearing the finale look from Louis Vuitton’s FW24 menswear (designed by Pharrell Williams): a black leather jacket and crystal-studded Damier check shorts, topped off with a pristine white Stetson hat. At the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards, where she received the Innovator honor, Bey rocked a custom Versace ensemble inspired from from 1992 – a fringed black leather bustier and slim pants dripping with gold Western scrollwork, paired with not one but two studded belts and a Versace cowboy hat from the house’s 2018 collection.
On social media, Beyoncé embraced the cowboy vibe in everyday ways too. She famously posted an Instagram photo in head-to-toe denim (jeans, a denim shirt, and even a denim handbag), leaning into the so-called “Canadian tuxedo” look. The post sent fans into a frenzy; online mentions of “double denim” jumped 14% in the wake of Cowboy Carter’s release. Clearly, if Queen Bey was trying out quadruple denim “on denim on denim” as she cheekily sings on her track “Levii’s Jeans,” the Hive were more than ready to follow suit.
Cowboy Carter
But nowhere was Beyoncé’s western glam more extravagant than on her own stage. The Cowboy Carter World Tour has been a fashion spectacle in itself. Beyoncé and her stylists Shiona Turini, Ty Hunter, and Karen Langle curated a rotating closet of custom cowboy-inspired looks from top designers. We’ve seen her draped in a floor-sweeping Coperni skirt patterned like the American flag, then switch to a body-hugging denim-fringed Roberto Cavalli jumpsuit complete with a custom hat to match and a belt buckle bigger than Texas! One minute she’s stunning in a white leather Mugler bodysuit laced with shimmering fringe and thigh-high boots for opening night, the next she’s commanding the stage in a bold Diesel ensemble printed head-to-toe with black-and-white “newspaper” graphics, a custom pattern emblazoned with song lyrics. Even Burberry got in on the action: Beyoncé donned a Swarovski-crystal embellished suede bodysuit in the brand’s iconic plaid, finished with fringe and matching crystal cowboy boots in Burberry’s signature Loch Green (In a heartwarming touch, daughter Blue Ivy joined her onstage in a matching green Burberry get-up, sparkles and all.) From Moschino to Dsquared2, nearly every outfit in Bey’s setlist pays homage to Cowboy Carter’s “Yeehaw Agenda”. Fashion is this era is center stage, not an afterthought. As one review put it, Beyoncé has made her “country glam” outfits as essential to the show as the songs themselves.
At the end of the day, Cowboy Carter was about reclaiming space using its music. It was about flipping the script on what “American” looks like, sounds like, and dresses like. Beyoncé expanded cowboy culture, making it louder, glossier, and unapologetically Black. And the fashion world caught on quick. Pharrell gave us a rhinestone-studded rodeo at Louis Vuitton. Ralph Lauren doubled down on Western elegance. Streetwear labels leaned in. Fans showed up to concerts dressed like the main character in a modern-day spaghetti western.
The cowboy came back, but this time, she was bold, Black, and bedazzled.