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Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009
The cowgirl way, from buckle bunnies to the more modern version in designer duds
Where have all the cowgirls gone? Some Fort Worth women keep the Western spirit alive.
BY JOANNA CATTANACH
Devon Dawson is a member of the Texas Trailhands, a Western swing group.
dfw.com/Rodger Mallison
dfw.com/Rodger Mallison
Brandon Wade
Whitney Lee, a former trick rider and now assistant buyer at Maverick Western Wear, is a more modern cowgirl, in designer jeans and lots of jewelry. Brandon Wade
What’s the most important component of cowgirl chic?
Late night at the Cantina Cadillac in Fort Worth, and things are looking good. Lots of straight men, cheap booze, no cover charge and few women.
Where else are the odds this good? A couple of pulls on a $1.50 rum and Coke and a puff on two free cigs from a pack of Marlboro Lights left on the bar counter, and we’re in business. I’m feeling confident in a pair of dark-wash jeans, boots and a shirt with a horse and rider and the word "Bisquitville" scrolled across my belly. I scope the crowd with my sidekick, a reformed buckle bunny.
On this night, dressed in black pin-striped pants and high-heel dress boots, she’s more church mom than beer queen. In the 15 years since she hung up her halter top and retired her Rockies, a lot has changed in this cowgirl’s world. Divorced with a teenage son, gospel has replaced her Garth Brooks tapes. Oh, it was fun, she said, blowing out a curl of smoke, but most girls can’t take the barfly life. It wears you out. The hangovers, the one-night stands, the work it takes to party. It was too much.
"This place used to be packed," she said. I raise a skeptical eyebrow. By 11:15 on Friday night, only three cars waited at the stoplight at the intersection of Main and Exchange streets in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Isn’t this supposed to be the heartbeat of Cowtown?
Things aren’t much livelier down the street at the Longhorn Saloon, where a cute blonde in a gray mini-dress strums a guitar with a Jewel-esque passion. At Filthy McNasty’s, a bald man and his friend buy us a beer and a couple of shots. And by midnight, the numbers back at the Cadillac are slightly improved. Couples now clutter the once-deserted dance floor.
But as ladies scoot by in T-shirts, jeans and tennis shoes, I have to wonder: Where have all the cowgirls gone?
The lost art of the buckle bunny
At one point, my companion explains, she and a pack of 10 girls ruled Main Street. By day, they were college students, day-care teachers, checkout girls; by night, they were girls of horny cowboy fantasies. They were queens of the bar scene. They were buckle bunnies.
Their leader, Deidre, a bleach-blonde with a tight ass, flat tummy and perky chest, knew every bouncer and barback in Cowtown. They sailed past security with a wink and a smile.
Like Cinderellas before midnight, their transformation was something straight out of a fairy tale (a slightly trashy fairy tale, but still). First came the Rockies — high-waisted jeans that were always two sizes smaller than the tag read. The easiest way to put on a starched pair was to lay on a bed, hook a wire hanger into the top of the zipper and tug the metal up until your pants closed. If you could breathe, you could wear ’em. Next came the "boob shirt." This could be a Western shirt with ends tied tight up under the boobs, or a halter or crop-top. The more boobs, the better. Hair was teased and sprayed to a stiffness a Texas twister couldn’t budge. Round-toed Roper boots completed the look, and a belt buckle was added for good measure. Fashions have changed since these Cowtown beauties ruled Main Street 15 years ago.
But the bunnies who walked into bars one hip at a time are still the same, says Donna King. "Girls playing at cowgirls," says King, owner of Western Wear Exchange, a consignment store that caters to the "bar crowd" and cowgirls and cowboys on a budget. Rockies are relics now replaced by looser-fitting low-rise jeans, she says. Round-toed Ropers have been replaced by pointed-toe "roach kickers," and while the shirt styles have changed, "boob shirts" are still in. But playing at a cowgirl isn’t the same as being one. Which is why you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bunny who actually cops to the label — no matter if you’re starin’ at three inches of cleavage and fake eyelashes and are blinded by a made-in-China rhinestone belt.
Real cowgirls
For Whitney Lee, a former trick rider and assistant buyer at Maverick Western Wear in the Stockyards, being a modern cowgirl "is a way of life."
Today’s cowgirls are working women who may never wear a rhinestone buckle, suburban moms who’ll pay $500 for a hand-stitched embroidered skirt, rodeo queens and ranch owners who know the business end of a bull. They’re singer-songwriters who can’t milk a goat but who know every Bob Wills hit.
"We have customers who come in all the time, and they are real cowgirls," Lee says. Maverick caters to the upscale cowgirl and cowboy. "You don’t have to ride a horse to be called a cowgirl."
Lee is in her early 20s, and prefers a modern-cowgirl look. She likes 7 For All Mankind jeans she says, a wrist full of turquoise and silver bracelets jingling as she speaks. A real cowgirl either has livestock or has been raised around it, Lee says. She shouldn’t be afraid to get dirt under her nails, and she should drive something bigger than a car, with enough power to pull a trailer. She should be able to name at least five George Strait songs and know how to two-step.
Nearby, Amy McIntire sits listening in on the conversation, while a blue heeler naps at her feet. A natural blonde, she’s wearing a Cabela’s camouflage hooded sweater, and her work jeans are stuffed into the tops of red Ariats — the working cowgirl’s boot of choice. Her skin is tan (the natural way) and she smacks on a piece of gum, unimpressed by the smell of $500 leather and lace around her. Raised on a farm and now living in a rural area outside Slidell, she’s waiting on her husband, Rex, a "real cowboy" who lost three of his front teeth when a horse kicked him.
"See," he says, popping out his partial — three fake teeth attached to a wire. "Cowboying — it’s not just getting on a horse and chasing a cow back and forth," he said, a wad of dip in his lower lip. "It’s a hard life. It’s a good way of life." Amy nods in agreement. She doesn’t have any definition for cowgirling. "I just don’t fit in with this city," she says. "It’s too complicated."
Western swing
Living the cowgirl way means living up to the cowgirl legend. In movies and song, cowgirls save their horses to ride their cowboys, stand by their man or help their best girlfriend bury an abusive husband ("Goodbye, Earl!"). Other times they’re the tough mavens on the back of a buckboard who can wring a chicken’s neck, or shoot a six-tail rattler with a rifle in one hand and a baby in the other. Reality is much less impressive, but nonetheless, the cowgirls in song and screen are a part of the culture. "I am an entertainment-style cowgirl," says Devon Dawson of the Texas Trailhands, a Western swing group.
Dawson, a guitarist and vocalist, also works with the Cowtown Opry. She was recently named female performer of the year by the Academy of Western Artists. "I can’t feed a goat," Dawson says, but she could, "with a little instruction." Dressed in a denim skirt and embroidered Western shirt with a neck kerchief, she even walks with a swing. With her high-brim hat, she’s more Dale Evans than down-home, but her role, her passion is to keep her love of the West alive and well. And she does so by singing, yodeling and hollerin’ about a bygone time.
"[Cowgirls] are very loyal to the cowgirl image, very loyal to the cowgirl lifestyle," says Dee Dee Wix, director of sales and marketing at the Cowtown Coliseum. While their numbers may be fewer, the cowgirl culture is actually spreading among teens and college women, she says. Most of the growth is seen in fashion, with popular brands like Marc Jacobs and Steve Madden and high-end stores like Neiman Marcus and Lord and Taylor incorporating Western styles in their clothing and shoe lines.
Cowgirling isn’t cheap. Decent boots can run $400 or more, jeans $50 or more (and that’s on sale at some stores), a thick leather belt with a few rhinestones and a silver or embellished buckle $100 (the more bling, the more money). A woman’s embroidered Western shirt with pearl snaps and piping can run $85. King of Western Wear Exchange offers the same items at a fraction of the price.
But whether you’re sporting snazzy Steve Madden shirts or a pair of 15-year-old Rockies, it’s more about the swagger and the mindset.
"A real cowgirl is somebody that is not gonna sell out to what she believes," Wix says. "A real cowgirl is gonna be comfortable in her cowgirl attire all the time."
"[Cowgirls] are
very loyal to the cowgirl image,
very loyal to the cowgirl lifestyle."
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