It’s week three of the 2024 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and deep in the underbelly of NRG Stadium, Bernard “Bun B” Freeman is in his dressing room. He wears black leather from neck-to-toe; ribbons of gunmetal fringe run down each leg and across his back in wingspan fashion. A panel of white on his motorcycle jacket reads “UGK”—shorthand for Underground Kings, the hip-hop duo he co-founded with Chad “Pimp C” Butler in Port Arthur, Texas, circa 1987. In a few hours, he’ll take the stage to headline the Houston Rodeo’s “All-American Takeover,” welcoming guests including Drake, Nelly and Rick Ross. But beforehand, he takes a moment to talk fashion.
Like many a Texan, Bun B has clocked western-wear’s recent surge in mainstream popularity. “Fashion every now and then sets its eye on the common man, the working man,” he tells Vogue. Just look at what Pharrell [Williams] has done.”
For his sophomore show as Louis Vuitton Men’s creative director, Williams sent three versions of the LV Texan Boot—crafted at the French house’s leather goods atelier, Rochambeau Ranch, in North Texas, with input from El Paso-based Stallion Boots—down the Paris runway in January. The following month, Beyoncé, a born and bred Houstonian, tipped her Stetson hat to Williams at the Grammys in a variation of Vuitton’s fall 2024 menswear collection closing look. Add to that forthcoming country albums from Mrs. Carter and Lana Del Rey, chaps proliferating fall 2024 collections, and the horse girl-ification of Bella Hadid amid her romance with cowboy Adan Banuelos.