How The West Was Worn

How the West Was Worn

From Publishers WeeklyIn How the West Was Worn, Holly George-Warren and Michelle Freedman offer a sartorial history of the American West. From the pre-20th-century origins of western style to Hollywood westerns, rodeo stars, cowboy crooners, ranchers and businessmen, good old boys from the Tetons to Dallas are presented in all their tooled, embroidered, sequined, fringed, 10-galloned, gun-toting finery. Accompanying an exhibit at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles, this loving catalogue of inimitable western styles will have broad classic and kitsch appeal, depending on the audience. George-Warren (Garcia), editor of Rolling Stone Press, and Freedman, a clothing designer and writer, give engaging scholarly treatment to the clothes that help make the icon.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.To accompany an exhibition at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, chief curator James Nottage briefly reviews the evolution of clothing that people actually wore in frontier America. Then a team of popular culture historians trace the versions that have appeared in movies, television, and concert stage throughout the 20th century. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)From Library JournalWestern-wear buckaroos will think that they have died and gone to the great ponderosa in the sky when they sit down with this over-the-mountaintop book, which accompanies the eponymous exhibition at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles through January 21, 2002. Rolling Stone Press editor George-Warren and clothing designer Freedman trace the progression of Western clothing from its mountain men and cowboy progenitors through the iconographic restyling of Hollywood and Nashville to the off-the-rack consumer incarnations produced by companies like Rockmount Ranch Wear and H Bar C. All the designer luminaries are well represented, including Rodeo Ben, Manuel, Katy K, and Nudie. The color and black-and-white photographs will fringe, chainstitch, and rhinestone your Rocketbuster boots off, and the text, not to be entirely upstaged, provides depth and clarity. Other titles like True West, 100 Years of Western Wear, and Way Out West (all o.p.) are good, but this one is art; and at $45, it is also a steal. For Western-wear clothes horses, fans, collectors, and anyone who was ever hoisted as a kid onto a pony in full faux Western regalia. Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TXCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.From the PublisherExhibition Schedule: Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles: Oct. 13, 2001-Jan. 21, 2002