Dressing the country musician : exploring stage identity through costume

Despite its humble beginnings, country music has traditionally been an exceptionally difficult community for queer and black artists to gain access to. Although this battle for acceptance has spanned decades, a new front has opened: fashion. Queer and black artists are using stage-wear embedded with strong associations to country western music and cowboy lifestyle to make waves and break into a music business that has been heavily gated to them. This internet instigated fashion focused movement has developed over the past few years into a full-on agenda… the Yeehaw Agenda. The country western silhouette is arguably one of the most recognizable, distinctly American styles. Large brimmed hats, bright colors, embroidery, fringe, and rhinestones create and complete the quintessential image of the singing cowboy. The sparkle and flamboyant presence of such an image has become synonymous with country music, its musicians, and the iconic pop culture image of cowboys and has become inseparable from the stage, be it a rodeo or a concert. As the canonical semiotics associated with western wear and the cowboy silhouette becomes weaponized against its self-proclaimed owners, it begs the question of where these signs came from in the beginning. Understanding what they mean and who truly “owns” them will bring light to the power that these signs have when crafted into these artist’s stage identities. This thesis is a phenomenological study that explores the connection between a country musician’s stage identity and their stage costume. I will be analyzing how the symbols behind country musician’s costumes have collected and changed over time and how current queer musicians are using those symbols to build a place and an identity for themselves in the larger community of country music. Taking this investigation about the connection between stage identity and costume, I worked one on one with Dan Hardick, the lead singer of the Austin-based country music band FingerPistol, and designed and created a “Nudie” style embroidered and rhinestoned show stopping western suit for him to perform in.Theatre and Danc