Saturday Shootout

Which is western? Answer after the jump.

Affliction

I mention this brand a lot on here, because they, at least for the moment I was paying attention, were the biggest brand churning out the style of clothing that was all tied up in MMA and other assorted douchebaggery. All scrolls, scripts, crosses, fluer de lis, and skulls. I saw a lot of it when I was working on Bourbon Street. When I left Bourbon, this style and my awareness of it, faded out of my brain quickly (thank you baby Jesus!). That was about 2 and half years ago, so I'll admit I'm in no way up to date on the current intricacies of this brand/trend.

And I've noticed something in my search for photos to compare with the western items I find- Affliction has grown up quite a bit. They're actually putting out some not-so-terrible stuff these days. So, when I use this brand in comparison with things "western wear" companies are putting out, please think of the brand as it was at the height of it's douchebaggery a few years ago, not as it is now. Trends run slow in the western wear world, I guess, since they're many years behind mainstream trend. I wish I could get release dates on the items I use in comparison, but that's hard to come by on a lot of them. Just assume that they're a couple years old unless otherwise stated.

Perhaps that means in another 5 years when Western Wear catches up to Affliction et al, they'll start putting things like this out- (from Affliction's fall collection). Who here wouldn't be more likely to buy one of these shirts over any of the "western wear" company items I've posted previously?

Introduction

Hello folks, my name is Ellie Lahey, I have a vintage clothing store in New Orleans' French Quarter that has a heavy focus on western wear. I also have a clothing line called Ellie Monster of "recreated" vintage western wear- we take plain western shirts and embroider my designs on them and have a lot of fun doing it. I'm obviously not a total purist style wise. I put some pretty out there designs on some of my shirts and do things that many purists would frown upon. That being said, I keep them true to what they are- western shirts. The same can not be said for much of what is being sold as western wear these days.

This blog will point out the questionable and bad decisions many western wear companies are making, draw parallels to the non-western items they are so blatantly ripping off, and will probably contain a generally negative look at current western wear. By this, I hope that you'll take a step back and reconsider what is acceptably western and what is not. If you, as a fashion challenged consumer, want to wear some of the hideous creations you'll find in this blog, that's on you, but real cowboys and cowgirls don't want to look like they just stepped off the Jersey Shore.

Now, the dress that irked me enough to start this blog-

This thing can be found at Sheplers.com and is made by Wrangler- one of the biggest western wear companies of all time. They dare to suggest that you 'flaunt your cowgirl style' by wearing this. What about this says "cowgirl"?

The busy graphic isn't western. The cut of the dress isn't western. The 'silver tone stud' decoration isn't western. This dress is nothing but a cheap looking, poorly executed Affliction rip off thrown on a model wearing cowboy boots so they can market it to western wear shoppers. The graphic has a cross, wings, roses and a lot of noise- how exciting and unique, just like everything made by Affliction and dozens of other similar brands.