The Victorian Influence

Writing in True West magazine, G. Daniel DeWeese looks at Western wear. An excerpt:

On the Old West frontier, Victorian clothes became a link to the civilized lives people had left behind. The clothes were an absurdly refined contrast to the people’s rough and tumble existence in a wild and untamed land.

In truth, contemporary Western wear is rooted more in Wild West shows and early rodeos than with the buttoned-up Victorian garb commonly worn before the turn of the 20th century. Yet you’ll still see some important holdovers from that era.