Ttrends are slippery, ephemeral things that simply cannot be forced into existence. Otherwise, poor Gretchen Wieners might've actually been able to make "Fetch" happen.
But Beyoncé and Pharrell? Well, there's not much they can't do.
So, when Beyoncé and Pharrell simultaneously and separately decide to revive cowboycore, so shall cowboycore return.
Thus the cowboycore revival is unquestionable. But whether the movement will have greater cultural impact is the real question.
Pharrell's Fall/Winter 2024 Louis Vuitton menswear collection was the locus of 2024's cowboycore revival. Clad in his own 10-gallon hat, Skateboard P rode into Paris Fashion Week on a new yeehaw era, epitomized by leather Western shirts, layered denim chaps, and LV Timberland boots. Southern superstar Jelly Roll sat front-row.
Bootcut jeans worn by ranchers are reborn as supersized flares. Lived-in Carhartt is rendered aspirational, luxurious even. Americana, lovingly chopped 'n screwed.
And then, in Pharrell's passing of the Americana torch, Beyoncé wore his custom LV cowboycore to the 2024 Grammys, complete with Damier-patterned bolo tie.
As is so often the case with most things Beyoncé, her wild wild Westernwear was merely a whistle-wettener for what's to come next: a bonafide country album, the Renaissance follow-up no one was expecting.
Accompanying it is a renaissance of the Western sort, a forceful trend-birthing that only mononymous household names could kickstart.
Beyoncé and Pharrell's Western revival is framed by big ol' Route 66-style billboards promoting their boot-scootin' escapades. It's laden with luxury labels, gold-plated belt buckles, and diamond-studded grillz.
And, like the 2019 Yeehaw Agenda that predated the cowboycore of 2024, it's channeling America's Black cowboys, updating an underrepresented juncture of American history for modern sensibilities.
Beyoncé and Pharrell are doing cowboycore the biggest but they aren't alone in draggin' it, spurs-first, into the future.
Willy Chavarria has channeled Chicano cowboys since his Spring/Summer 2024 collection; cowboy hats again accented his Fall/Winter 2024 runway show. Other recent collections from brands as disparate as NIGO's KENZO and Korea's THUG CLUB share in the cowpoke aesthetic, doing double denim, layering on the fringe, and occasionally stepping into some very cowboy-style boots.
Ultra-famous folks of the trend-savvy variety are already boarding the hayride wagon.
Kim Kardashian repped cowboy hats a couple times this year already, for instance, while Rihanna went shopping for custom cowboy headgear at buzzy Aspen milliner Kemosabe around the end of 2023. Bella Hadid, famous horse girl, epitomizes the most authentic form of cowboycore.
That's a herd of cowboycore factors working in Beyoncé and Pharrell's favor. But celebrity alone isn't a cheat code for success.
2019's so-called Yeehaw Agenda rode off into the sunset it reached mass saturation and lost the deeper references that initially made it feel fresh. You can only listen to "Old Town Road" so many times.
Style codes of that movement have had some lasting but limited impact.
For example, cowboy hats and boots have been so widely accepted into modern dress — during summer 2023's inescapable Taylor Swift tour mania, they were darn near ubiquitous — that the Crocs cowboy boots released last year were basically just accepted as an inevitability. As the "newness" of cowboycore faded, so did the stylistic appeal. It became a costume.
But Beyoncé and Pharrell epitomize the avant. They're not just onto what's next: they are what's next. If cowboycore was reintroduced solely by Pharrell's runway show or Beyoncé's new album, it might lack legs. The fact that they're going at it together gives the trend more ammo for its six-shooter.
Maybe, if you're famous enough, you really can make trends happen at the drop of a (cowboy) hat. These aren't your regular A-listers, y'know: even your parents (and their parents) know Beyoncé and Pharrell. That kind of fame, that kind of influence, moves mountains and is almost certainly capable of revitalizing a once-tired trend.
After all, Gretchen Wieners was Gretchen Wieners. She certainly was not Pharrell and she absolutely was not Beyoncé.
