How Brands For Cowboys and Trail Enthusiasts Tread Being ‘in Fashion’

Consult Vogue, Glamour or TikTok, and they’ll tell you the same thing: 2024 is the year of the barn jacket.

Countless brands — including Toteme, Nili Lotan, Staud, The Row, Everlane and J.Crew — are selling their own take on the 1920s-era utilitarian chore coat, which features pockets and snap buttons, this fall. But while it may have first entered the industry’s consciousness on Prada’s Spring/Summer 2024 runway, it was workwear labels — many of which are increasingly looking to tap the power of fashion — who originated the style.

It’s a familiar cycle: the clothing or look of a particular community creeps into the fashion consciousness, and suddenly, becomes a hit. Westernwear’s moment in the zeitgeist has built buzz for brands like Texan bootmaker Lucchese, denim label Wrangler and direct-to-consumer boot start-up Tecovas. Workwear from brands like Carhartt and Dickies, once exclusively the uniform of factory workers and farm hands, is now worn by skaters and menswear aficionados. Outdoor equipment sellers Arc’teryx and Salomon gained fashion status during the 2020s’ gorpcore obsession; now, technical shoes pound pavement as often as they traverse mountains.

Fashion represents a huge growth opportunity for heritage brands — which are usually tied to specific audiences or waning industries as well as facing challengers in their core market — especially when their particular aesthetic already has natural traction in the industry. But taking advantage means they must speak to a customer base that may not know the brand’s history or have the same values as its core demographic. Catering to an existing shopper while attracting a new one is a conundrum every brand faces at some point, but it’s particularly delicate for those with storied origins.

“The more cachet you have in heritage, the more sensitive your customer is in the steps you take to evolve because they can feel abandoned,” said Nora Kleinewillinghoefer, partner in Kearney’s consumer practice.

Plus, like trends themselves, the attention of fashion-forward shoppers can be fleeting. While fashion may drive the most growth for heritage brands — it’s usually not the source of the lionshare of their revenue, even after they attract new shoppers.

“You never want to lose who you are when you chase these trends,” said Denise Anderson, Dickies’ vice president of global marketing.

Getting Product Right

For heritage labels, targeting more fashion-conscious consumers often means squaring values that can seem at odds with one another — embracing new customers while retaining the old, using new marketing tactics and tones to spur growth but at the same time, keeping your messaging consistent.

“In a brand’s world, focus is better. In the fashion world, fresh and new is critical, it’s a tug of war,” said Allen Adamson, founder of marketing firm Metaforce. “If you try to be everything to everybody, you’re often nothing.”

Dickies, for example, began going after a more lifestyle-centric consumer in the 2010s, after it saw natural traction among skaters and streetwear enthusiasts. It started stocking its products in trendy retailers like Opening Ceremony and Fred Segal and rolled out collabs with Gucci and Supreme. While an emphasis on fashion initially helped open Dickies plug into culture and reach younger shoppers, it proved a distraction from its much larger core business. In the latest earnings report for parent VF Corp, Dickies reported a 15 percent revenue slump in the three months ended June 2024 from the year prior. CEO Bracken Darrell attributed the decline to “too quick a push into trying to become a pure fashion brand,” particularly in the US.

“We had a lot of florals and prints and things that didn’t resonate with our core consumer, some of the designs weren’t as versatile or classic,” said Anderson. The brand is now refocused on its core workwear business.

Heritage brands looking to tap into fashion have to stay focused on what makes them special, even as they shift to appeal to new customers. Salomon emphasises technical prowess, even for the products coming out of its Sportstyle segment, which is responsible for fashion adaptations of its running shoes. The version of its XT-Wings 2 made in partnership with menswear design studio JJJound, for instance, features Salomon’s SensiFit and EndoFit elements which help foot alignment and control while running on uneven trails in addition to its All Terrain Contragrip sole, meant to provide better traction.

“The goal is just to leverage performance in this world,” said Kristof Cavazzana, global director of Salomon Sportstyle, which is the fastest growing segment at the brand. “The starting point of how we design [fashion] shoes is always performance.” That approach has helped bring in all sorts of consumers. Case in point: The vast majority of shoppers at its first New York pop-up in October were there because they wanted a new sneaker to work into their daily rotation, not because they were gearing up for a long run, said Jenny Taylor, Salomon’s vice president of marketing, North America.

Similarly, the westernwear boom — buoyed by the hit TV series “Yellowstone” and Beyoncé's “Cowboy Carter” — has opened 140-year-old Texas-based bootmaker Lucchese up to shoppers outside the well-heeled residents of its home state. The brand, in turn, has upped its investment in ready-to-wear and is releasing boots with approachable materials and silhouettes, like suede and rounded toes. But it’s less about creating entirely novel products than just getting in front of new customers.

“We’re not moving to trends, but we’re opening our hearts and minds to new customers and individuals,” said Austin Ripmaster, Lucchese’s creative director and vice president of brand.

Product expansion is centred on items Lucchese feels like it has authority in as a heritage leather crafter, like jackets and bags. To expand successfully, Kleinewillinghoefer recommends brands engage in storytelling around “why it’s a natural progression to go into other new categories.”

Denim brand Wrangler, which was originally created for use by cowboys in rodeos, has found that core customers are receptive to new silhouettes and other shifts, said Jenni Broyles, global brands president, as long as it’s a “change that’s right for them … that doesn’t feel too far-fetched or fashionable.”

Collaborations offer a path to experiment without straying too far from the brands’ DNA: One brand brings the heritage, the other the fashion cred. Wrangler, for example, released its third collection with LA-based ready-to-wear line Staud this month. Still, it’s a balance. Collaborations are a huge part of Salomon’s strategy — but Cavazzana says no more than yes.

“If you are a consumer and you have to digest 15 new stories for a brand, then another one, then another one, at the end, it’s collaboration-washing,” said Cavazzana.

Marketing the Archive and Utility

When a brand leans into fashion, the biggest risk is harming their credibility with their core audience. To preserve that connection — typically a heritage brand’s most powerful marketing tool — even the messaging aimed at new audiences is typically centred around a brand’s history and functionality.

“People are looking for stories of authenticity …. brands have to figure out how to present those in a modern way; put them on the right people, embed them into culture and social media,” said Tanner Graham, chief executive of creative agency General Idea. At this juncture, it’s about managing being timely with timeless, he added.

When a brand sees traction, it should experiment where it makes sense. Lucchese, for example, is opening stores in trendier areas where a boot brand still feels at home, including Bozeman, Montana; Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Austin’s trendy South Congress Street. It has inked a collaboration with fashion-forward, LA-based hatmaker Nick Fouquet and is subtly introducing more fashion-forward styling against cityscape backdrops on social media. At the same time, the brand is also strategically emphasising archival boot styles — which it sees as an opportunity to tell a story about its history to new customers while still intriguing existing ones.

“It sends a message to the marketplace we’ve been here, and we’re the preeminent voice in this style and in this world,” said Ripmaster.

Similarly, Dickies’ lifestyle line is now being guided directly by the archive, said Anderson. The focus across the brand is “communicating [its] brand DNA, purpose and celebrating where [it] came from,” she said. The brand is fronting functionality in marketing; its the reason the fashion consumer adopted it in the first place, said Anderson. Its Instagram features videos of electrical engineers and the crew of a family-owned log home-building business at various stages of construction.

At the crux of any expansion question is figuring out what the consumer — new and old — values, said Kleinewillinghoefer.

“You can get stuck on heritage and the wrong elements of it because you’re holding on to things you believe the consumer cares about,” said Kleinewillinghoefer. “Many brands overestimate their own knowledge of what is driving consumers towards them. Understanding that is critical.”