For the last decade, supermodel Bella Hadid has been the preeminent face of the fashion industry. She’s dominated every catwalk, magazine cover, campaign, and red carpet, but now she has her sights set on a very different, more cowgirl-centric career move. In the past couple of months, Hadid has been spotted all over Texas riding horses, kissing cowboys, and generally causing a ruckus in every small town she visits, posing for photos with peoples’ babies like she’s running for political office. And clearly, it’s not just Texas who loves Bella, but vice versa—the model recently purchased a home in the Fort Worth area, per TMZ. In addition to becoming a registered resident of the Lone Star State, she’s also picked up a new Western-inspired wardrobe to match—a look that seems to have majorly influenced the attire of her A-list contemporaries. As one of the world’s biggest supermodels, Hadid is no stranger to setting fashion trends. But in this case, her newfound yeehaw aesthetic isn’t just another passing phase—it’s a full-fledged lifestyle rebrand.

Last year, Hadid took a break from the fast-paced, high-stress world of modeling to prioritize her mental and physical health. And it seems that while putting her career on hiatus, she also found new love, both romantically and professionally. In October 2023, after months spent off the catwalk and out of the public eye, TMZ spotted Hadid kissing and holding hands with a new man, Adan Banuelos, at the Fort Worth Stockyards in Texas. Since then, the pair have been regularly photographed together, often while wearing cowboy hats and seated upon horses.

These style choices make perfect sense for Banuelos, a bona fide cowboy. Not only was he inducted into the National Cutting Horse Association Rider Hall of Fame in 2017, making him one of the youngest inductees of all time, but he’s also the four-time recipient of the number one NCHA “leading open rider” title, among various other major titles. (In cutting, the rider and horse work as a team to demonstrate the animal’s ability to isolate a single cow from its herd before a panel of judges.) It seems that the gift for cutting runs in the Fort Worth native’s blood: his father, Ascencion Banuelos, was also the first Mexican American ever inducted into the NCHA Hall of Fame. According to his website, the younger Banuelos “has already amassed over five million dollars in earnings aboard a horse” and is considered to be “the future of the performance horse industry.” When not competing, Banuelos focuses on training and showing cutting horses, as well as training riders, including his new supermodel girlfriend. The cowboy loves his work in more ways than one.

At the end of January, Hadid showed off all the practice she’s put into this new pursuit, making her competitive cutting debut in the NCHA $50,000 Limited Amateur event at Bosque Ranch in Weatherford. Hadid rode a bay roan stallion named Metallic Tito for the occasion and came in at an impressive third place. She may be new to horse cutting, but this is hardly Hadid’s first equine competition. The 29-time Vogue cover girl, cofounder of Kin Euphorics, and one of the highest-paid models in the world is actually an accomplished equestrian as well who has been doing competitive show jumping for much of her life. She even had plans to join the Olympic team, but gave up that dream in 2016 as her battle with Lyme disease worsened. Hadid returned to riding in March 2023, but this marks the first time she’s ventured into the Western side of the sport. After Hadid placed in her first competition in January, Banuelos celebrated his girlfriend’s win on Instagram, and implied she would be continuing to compete in cutting events, writing, “Can’t wait to see what the future holds for this duo . . .” Banuelos’s ambiguous wording caused many to wonder if the “duo” he was speaking of was Bella and her horse, or Bella and himself.

Along with the model’s new hobby and new boyfriend has also come a whole new style. Since making these equestrian competitions her main professional priority, Hadid’s street style now also features a decidedly more country flair. While her typical NYC uniform may be luxury athleisure and the latest high-fashion apparel to come down the runway, in Texas, the model has been living exclusively in ranch hand staples: cowboy boots, big belt buckles, and a whole lot of denim, all worn with her own SoCal twist, of course. In a recent carousel of photos shared on Instagram from her time spent on the ranch, Hadid layered a brightly colored vintage tank top under a more traditional brown pinstripe dress shirt. When competing in the Limited Amateur event, she wore black leather, fringed chaps, and a pair of black cowboy boots that featured custom spurs with her name engraved on them. And to celebrate her birthday, she invited friends and family to join her for dinner in the horse stables before sharing a kiss with Banuelos while wearing matching black cowboy hats. 

Bella isn’t the only A-lister who’s been swept up by the country spirit over the last couple of months. With the announcement of her next album during the Super Bowl, Beyoncé also revealed she will be returning to her Texas roots and all the fashion that comes along with it. Throughout February, the music legend has stepped out in promotion of her new singles, launched a hair-care brand, and attended runway shows all while wearing various mega-glam versions of cowboy hats and boots. For the Grammys, she wore a custom version of a look straight from the latest Louis Vuitton menswear collection designed by Pharrell Williams which was heavily inspired by the Wild West. These high-end cowpoke looks are also something we’re sure to see much more of from Beyoncé as she begins releasing visuals for this album and touring. And the Texas aesthetic seems poised to take over the rest of the music industry as well, with Lana Del Rey revealing at a pre-Grammys event that her forthcoming release Lasso will be her first-ever country album. (Golden’s Kacey Musgraves, for her part, has swapped country aesthetics for the Greenwich Village black turtleneck.)

In addition to these pop stars, a whole slew of big-name celebs have also recently pivoted to the cowboy look while vacationing in Aspen this winter. (With Round Top and Marfa, Aspen makes a point on the “golden triangle” of Western wear.) In January, Kevin Costner was spotted doing his best impression of Westworld’s the Man in Black while walking the city’s downtown. That month, Rihanna was also photographed wearing a white cowboy hat gifted to her by Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards after they ran into one another at the store Kemo Sabe. Kendall Jenner and Khloé Kardashian also did some shopping at the “luxe Western” shop, whose signature cowboy hats can range in price from $350 to $1,595. And with a sky-high price tag like that, it should come as no surprise that multibillionaire Jeff Bezos is also a longtime fan of the brand. (He wore a Kemo Sabe cowboy hat and boots on his first Blue Origin flight to outer space in 2021.) And while its most popular outpost may be in Colorado, Kemo Sabe also has ties to Texas, much like Bella and Beyoncé. Not only does it have a factory in Gainesville that manufactures its hats and belt buckles, but last year the company opened its fifth store, in Round Top, and acquired a boot factory in El Paso.

And perhaps most unexpectedly yet, Kim Kardashian has also recently discovered a love for all things country western. While Calabasas may be a far cry from Texas, the reality star has posted numerous photos to her Instagram recently sporting a number of rancher-friendly looks, including partying at the Super Bowl in a black cowboy hat and vintage Gucci by Tom Ford top. There’s something about the cowboy aesthetic for, apparently, everyone to love. And the fact that dressing this way might make you look just a little bit more like Bella Hadid certainly doesn’t hurt.