Q: I was born and raised in Texas and have resided in New York City for the past couple of years. On a recent trip back home, I visited a friend on his ranch in West Texas and was mocked unmercifully for wearing skinny jeans. I will admit that the jeans were pretty skinny. But from the reaction I got, you would have thought I was wearing a tutu and a pair of elf boots. Have rural Texans always been this close-minded, or did I get what I deserved?
Cale Bennet
New York
July 2013
A: The Texanist is a little bit surprised that the reaction you incited with your big-city style has left you in such a state of shock. Did you really think that your fancy pants would fly in West Texas without eliciting derisive commentary from the locals? In Austin, where the Texanist lives, the skinny-jeaned populace is sizable enough that these creatures can roam freely about the city without much notice (or as freely as the skintight denim of their sausage-casing-like dungarees allows). This is surely also the case on the fashion-forward streets of Gotham. But it’s a much different story in the Texas hinterlands, where fashion is not forward—or leftward, rightward, or even backward. Those parts of the state are known to approve of a form-fitting j ean when worn by a female (see: “Tight Fittin’ Jeans,” by Conway Twitty; “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On,” by Mel McDaniel; and other similar examples), but when the wearer is a man, the people out there do tend to lean, somewhat en masse, toward a more generous fit. Once upon a time the parameters for acceptability began and ended with the Wrangler 13MWZ Cowboy Cut, a style so prevalent as to have been official ly sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1974. Nowadays, the variety of accepted looks has expanded—slightly. (Fun fact: just last year the PRCA updated its list of officially sanctioned jeans to include the new Wrangler 20X Collection Competition model, a.k.a. the 01MWX, which, in a sign of the times, features a cellphone pocket.) But as you surely know, West Texans remain a traditional folk in many regards, right down to the cladding of their lower halves. And since many of them are in the business, literally, of keeping the herd together, they are hardwired to take notice of mavericks and round them up. It appears that you may have pegged yourself as just such a maverick, sartorially speaking, and that your hosts, having spied you out there all alone in your skinny jeans, were only trying to get you back with the pack.
Q: I bought a fancy pair of brand-new Lucchese oiled-calfskin boots a while back and have not worn them out on the town but one time. They caught people’s eyes, but it seemed like it was only because of their newness. Also, they are not the most comfortable footwear. What can I do about breaking them in?
Name Withheld
March 2009
A: If experience has taught the Texanist anything, it is that new boots, like really rank broncos or compulsive tobacco addictions, are not easily broken. There are no soapy shortcuts here, no training of monkeys to do it for you. The union of foot and boot is not unlike the union of holy matrimony, and, as in the best marriages, the strongest bonds are forged by time—time spent traveling together, molding to one another, collecting a patina of character-building scraps, nicks, and scratches in strange and foreign lands together. Boots right out of the box are never a walk in the park, but if you love them and listen to them, they will learn in time to adjust to each and every one of your inherited anomalies. Patience is your friend. It has worked for the Texanist, and it can work for you too. As soon as possible, take your Luccheses on down to Mexico for a long weekend; go ahead and have a few too many Ramos Gin Fizzes at El Dorado Bar, in Nuevo Laredo; get into a heated grito contest with a rotund mariachi trumpeter; black out in the middle of an argument back at the hotel and regain consciousness in a taxi that bumps down a dusty road and drops you at a strange walled compound where everyone seems very friendly. When you wake up the next morning sweaty, confused, and thankful to be alive, apologize for everything and swear that it will never happen again. If the relationship survives (this may require years of counseling), you will soon find yourself able to trip the light fantastic, run quickly away from trouble, and certainly walk through any park without the pain and unfortunate mien of a new boot owner.
Q: I recently picked up my girlfriend to go out dancing and she laughed at me relentlessly just because I had my pants tucked into my boots. Did I really earn such ridicule by doing this? I thought it was cool. Is there a rule about tucking your pants into your boots?
Richard
Via email
January 2009
A: The Texanist is unaware of any formal rule regarding the tucking of trousers into boots. But where he comes from, such an attempt at constructing a “honky-tonk look” for a Saturday night dance is likely to be regarded with harsh derision. The Texanist has seen men bullwhipped in parking lots for lesser transgressions. And since you brought it up, you should be forewarned that in some corners of the state tucking pants into boots may be construed as a preparation for the perpetration of an unholy act with a farm animal. Laws have been enacted to protect our livestock from despicable deeds such as these, and there should probably be a rule of fashion put in place to prevent a person from ever being misidentified as a farmyard Romeo. For the sake of your and your girl-friend’s reputations, as well as any sheep her father may own, the Texanist