Western Wear Goes Global

In Italy, they call it Texani style.

In New York City, cowboy boots walk runways and concrete sidewalks.

The Western look has traveled far from Texas. The weirder development is that Texas may no longer own it.

On a midafternoon on South Congress Avenue, the look is everywhere. Women in Pilates sets wear boots to coffee. Vintage denim hangs next to designer handbags in storefront windows. Outside Allens boots, visitors line up to try on hats they may wear once before pushing them to the back of a closet, while locals step around them dressed almost the same way.

For Sydney Parrish, known on TikTok as @sapbutterfly, the aesthetic isn’t so much a trend as a habit.

The seventh-generation Texan built an online following of more than 16,000 people by documenting her daily life, from outfits and social outings to church and workouts, all anchored by the western staples she grew up around.

“My content is authentic and true to my Texas roots,” Parrish said.

By Mikhelia Williams

Reporting Texas

In Italy, they call it Texani style.

In New York City, cowboy boots walk runways and concrete sidewalks.

The Western look has traveled far from Texas. The weirder development is that Texas may no longer own it.

On a midafternoon on South Congress Avenue, the look is everywhere. Women in Pilates sets wear boots to coffee. Vintage denim hangs next to designer handbags in storefront windows. Outside Allens boots, visitors line up to try on hats they may wear once before pushing them to the back of a closet, while locals step around them dressed almost the same way.

For Sydney Parrish, known on TikTok as @sapbutterfly, the aesthetic isn’t so much a trend as a habit.

The seventh-generation Texan built an online following of more than 16,000 people by documenting her daily life, from outfits and social outings to church and workouts, all anchored by the western staples she grew up around.

“My content is authentic and true to my Texas roots,” Parrish said.

She noticed her audience grow while working at Tecovas in Austin, where employees are required to wear boots every day. Styling outfits around them began as a practical challenge during a Texas summer and gradually became her online identity.

Parrish’s audience didn’t stay local.

“I see people engaging from all over,” she said. “You don’t have to be Texan to resonate with it.”

Fashion trends once moved slowly, usually passing from designers to magazines to consumers. Now they often move in reverse.

Social media has collapsed distance, said Jennifer Wilson, a textiles and apparel professor at the University of Texas at Austin. A style rooted in a specific place can now spread globally within days.

“One TikTok post can make a local Austin style visible worldwide,” she said.

But speed changes meaning. When trends spread quickly, they often lose their origins.

“A style with deep meaning for a community can get picked up and dropped before people ever know where it came from,” Wilson said.

Austin retailers are watching it happen in real time.

Harley Dotson, a merchandiser at Allens Boots and an independent fashion stylist, said demand for Western-inspired clothing has steadily increased. The customers are no longer just for Southwesterners who grew up with the style.”

“Western wear has always been a lifestyle for some people,” Dotson said. “But since it became trendy, the demand has spread to visitors, too.”

Dotson said the trend is measurable in her orders. Over the past year she has increased Western-inspired inventory, including boots, flared denim and denim jackets, by roughly 25% to meet demand she links to social media and influencer styling.

The version selling right now isn’t traditional cowboy attire, but softer Western details layered into everyday fashion.

The items selling now only hint at the style: stitching patterns, denim cuts, vintage silhouettes. Austin, she said, filters Western wear through its own identity: equal parts ranch, vintage and bohemian.

Parrish now lives in Nashville and noticed people buying inexpensive versions of cowboy boots simply for the look.

Many, she said, misunderstand the point.

“You don’t need a ranch to take part in it,” Parrish said.

Western wear, after all, wasn’t designed to trend. It was designed to work.

For her, that’s still the point.

“A good Stetson hat should fit your head right, keep the sun off your face in the summer and keep you warm in the winter,” she said.