I'm wearing boots and jeans and a Wrangler pearl-snap shirt right now (casual Friday at the office), and I wear cowboy hats all the time on the weekend. I also drive a pickup truck and frequently help my dad with his Angus cattle on the weekend, now that he's getting on in years. I'm a fifth-generation native Texan...definitely not a tourist or transplant.seamusTX wrote:Probably "tourist."WildBill wrote:What does a Hawaiian shirt "scream" in Hawaii?
How often do you see cowboy hats or boots in Texas, or at least the Houston area and eastward?
- Jim
Western wear is still pretty common in Texas once you get away from the big cities. Get out of the city and try dropping by a cattle auction some place like Navasota or Brenham, and you'll still see plenty of ranchers and cattle buyers who dress the part (without looking like a Hollywood stereotype).
As someone pointed out in a previous post, there's a big difference in Hawaiian shirts that tourists wear, and Hawaiian shirts that natives wear. There's the same difference with western wear. The "tourist" is usually struggling to walk in his brand new boots with the high "cowboy" heels, wearing his obviously-new dark-blue rigid Wranglers tucked into his boots, with perhaps a pair of spurs, and a obscenely large cowboy hat and belt buckle. A bandanna around the neck or spurs are also a dead give-away, unless you're actually on the back of a horse. If you to go a good-sized rodeo, you can pretty quickly spot the difference between someone who grew up wearing western wear, and a tourist wearing a costume, or at least I can.
Getting back on topic...I've had good luck buying some 2XL-Tall pearl-snap Western shirts at Tractor Supply. The darker plaid prints do a decent job of concealing my 1911. Ironically I've had better luck finding tall-sized shirts at Tractor Supply than I have had at dedicated western wear stores like Cavenders and Sheplers.
I also don't hesitate to wear MY Hawaiian shirts with my boots and jeans and cowboy hats. I call it "defining my own style," because I've found that as I get older I care less and less what other people think.
MojoTexas
