Designer shows historic cowboy clothing
When the Civil War ended, thousands of Texas cattle wandered and bred unfettered across the plains. Enter the cowboy. The first were often Civil War veterans. Destitute, they usually wore army surplus and whatever else they could scrounge.
“They were poor; they were destitute; they wore what they had,” said Cathy Smith, costume designer for both the small and the large screen. “There (was) no cowboy uniform.”
Smith presents “I See By Your Outfit: Historic Cowboy Clothing” in the New Mexico History Museum this afternoon, accompanied by about 120 slides of mostly vintage photographs.
“Today, when you look around Santa Fe and there’s people wearing cowboy hats and boots, they’re simply a postscript to the drugstore variety,” she said.
The Emmy Award-winning
“I believe I would know an old cowboy in hell with his hide burnt off. It’s the way they stand and walk and talk.’’
TEDDY BLUE ABBOTT IN “WE POINTED THEM NORTH: RECOLLECTIONS OF A COWPUNCHER.”
designer has helped create costumes for films ranging from “Dances With Wolves” and “Seraphim Falls” to “Comanche Moon” and “Legends of the Fall.” She won her Emmy in 1991 for “Son of the Morning Star.”
Smith came by the job naturally. She grew up on her family’s South Dakota horse and cattle ranch bordering two Sioux reservations. Her grandfather raised horses for the U.S. cavalry. She dates cowboy dress to the first cattle drive from Texas to Montana in 1886.
“They rounded up cattle and were trying to drive them to somewhere they could sell them — like Kansas or the closest railroad,” she said. “They wore army pants and some old shoes or moccasins. If they had any boots, they wore Civil War surplus.”
They soon discovered that the wide, floppy hats worn by the vaqueros in both Mexico and New Mexico were useless in the harsh winds of the northern plains. Eventually, little shops sprang up along the trails selling saddles and gear.
“They could buy things out of the Montgomery Ward catalog,” Smith added. “There were no jeans. A cowboy never wore jeans — they were for miners. They were above that.”
They also preferred rounded or square toed boots.
“A cowboy today wouldn’t be caught dead in pointedtoe boots,” Smith said.
Mostly, they wore very tightly woven wool pants, she added. Their hats changed with the weather.
In Nevada, cowboys were known as buckaroos, with their own distinctive style. These men often wore flat hats and had A-form saddles with post horns. Their traditional gear usually came embellished with silver.
“Buckaroo” may have been an English corruption of “vaquero.” The vaquero tradition came from Spain and was imported to New Mexico up the Santa Fe Trail.
In Montana and the Dakotas, cowboys were known as “waddies.” No one seems to know the word’s precise origins. Some say it was originally a derogatory term meaning thief or rustler that evolved into describing a lower-class hired man in a saddle.
New Mexican vaqueros patterned themselves after their Spanish brethren, with wide sombreros and leather.
“It all depends on the geography and the weather,” Smith said.
Various aspects of the cowboy tradition can be traced back to Arabic rule in Spain, including Moorish use of Oriental horse breeds, shorter stirrups, solid tree saddles, spurs and a heavy nose band. The Spanish transferred their traditions of cattle raising and horsemanship to the U.S. via Mexico. The earliest horses were originally of Andalusian, Barb and Arabian ancestry.
Distinctive regional traditions arose in Texas and California. The buckaroo or California tradition most closely resembled that of the vaquero, while the Texas tradition melded some Spanish techniques with methods from the eastern states.
In California, the buckaroo was considered a highly skilled worker. The California terrain allowed for more grazing with less open range. Their cattle were usually sold at the regional level, without the need to be driven hundreds of miles.
Real cowboy couture bears no resemblance to the spangled-and-sequined variety of the Wild West shows and old-school country music stars, Smith said.
“That’s got nothing to do with cowboys,” Smith said. “That’s Nashville.”
Smith bases her research on museums and “thousands” of original photos. She has lectured on the art and culture of the West at museums and events from the Smithsonian to Christy’s in New York.