Celebrities and Western Style: From Yellowstone to TikTok

There are moments in fashion history when a trend stops being a trend and becomes a cultural phenomenon. The Western revival of the 2020s is a textbook example, and it wouldn’t have happened without a series of public figures who, each in their own way, made Western style feel legitimate to audiences who would never have cared before.

From American TV to haute couture runways, from streaming platforms to TikTok feeds, it’s specific faces and silhouettes that shifted the numbers. This article traces those influences, style by style, piece by piece.

To understand the scale of the movement these influences are part of, our article on the Western fashion trend sets the bigger picture.

Yellowstone and the Beth Dutton effect

Few fictional characters have had such a direct impact on clothing sales as Beth Dutton, the youngest daughter of the Dutton family in the series Yellowstone. Played with absolute intensity, Beth pushed a dark, powerful take on feminine Western style that didn’t really exist in mainstream fashion consciousness before the show.

What she brought to Western style: Cowgirlcore, premium edition. No kitsch, no glitter, just leather, quality denim, and cowboy boots worn like stilettos, meaning with total authority. Beth Dutton proved Western could be sophisticated, sexy, and intimidating at the same time.

The measurable impact: Yellowstone drew between 12 and 15 million viewers per episode at the peak of its popularity. Fashion search studies showed that searches for “western outfit women” and “cowgirl boots” spiked every Monday morning in the US, the day after episodes aired. In Europe, the effect shifted with availability on streaming platforms.

The style to copy: Western leather boots in black or deep brown, high-waisted jeans, a buttoned Western shirt, a long jacket. A dark color palette. No irony in how you wear it, just absolute confidence.

Beyoncé: global validation

If Yellowstone established Cowgirlcore as a grown-up, serious style, Beyoncé did something even more radical with Cowboy Carter in 2024: she universalized Western. She told millions of people who didn’t see themselves in white country imagery that they could not only wear Western, they were its rightful heirs.

What she brought to Western style: A full cultural reframe. Rodeo Glam pushed to its most spectacular limits, but also Disco Cowgirl, Space Cowgirl, and even touches of Prairie Punk. Beyoncé didn’t embody one Western style, she embodied their most ambitious synthesis.

The measurable impact: +617% searches for “cowboy jacket” in the UK, +235% for “western fashion” on Pinterest in the weeks after the album dropped. Our article on the Beyoncé effect breaks down these numbers and what they mean for the European market.

The style to copy: The concert look, gold fringe, rhinestones, custom embroidered boots, as the ultimate style reference. The everyday version: crisp white, a sharp cowboy hat, and polished boots.

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Bella Hadid: urban Western

Bella Hadid represents something specific in the Western galaxy: she proves cowboy boots don’t need a Western setting to work. She wears them with evening dresses, minimalist sets, sportswear looks. She treats them like any other sophisticated shoe.

What she brought to Western style: Legitimacy in the Paris and New York fashion context. For fashionistas who follow top-model influence, seeing cowboy boots worn without the rest of the Western “costume” was a revelation: these Western boots could fit into any style register.

The style to copy: Cowboy boots worn like luxury ankle boots. No hat, very few extra Western signals. Just the boot, worn confidently in totally unexpected contexts. It’s the most accessible approach if you want to introduce Western without diving into the full aesthetic.

Dua Lipa: cowgirl, European edition

Dua Lipa started weaving Western pieces into her personal style around 2022-2023, well before the trend hit its media peak. She represents the European version of Western: less country, more fashion, with a sensibility that naturally speaks to French, Swedish, and British women.

What she brought to Western style: Proof that Western style can slip into a European wardrobe without any “translation” effort. She mixes cowboy boots with satin mini dresses, cowboy boots with wide, floaty trousers, and Western accessories with contemporary designer pieces.

The style to copy: The relaxed mix where the Western piece is one element among others, not the outfit’s central theme. A Western shirt over skinny jeans and simple cowboy boots, or the reverse: highly detailed cowboy boots with a monochrome outfit.

Pharrell Williams: reinvented menswear Western

Pharrell opened an important lane: unconventional menswear Western. His oversized cowboy hat, worn with contemporary luxury pieces, unexpected colors, and total ease, showed that the aesthetic isn’t reserved for women and that it can fit into a vision of menswear that really only exists in big cities.

What he brought to Western style: Permission for men to wear the cowboy hat as a fashion accessory, not a themed costume. That distinction is fundamental: a cowboy hat integrated into an urban look is a style statement. The same hat with a full Western outfit becomes a costume.

The style to copy: Oversized cowboy hat, minimalist outfit, bold colors. The Western accessory as the statement piece in a contemporary look.

Lil Nas X: Western without borders

Lil Nas X approaches Western the way he approaches everything: with creativity that refuses borders of gender, aesthetics, and vibe. His Western looks range from authentic campfire to extravagant Space Cowgirl, including couture jumpsuits that reinvent every code.

What he brought to Western style: The freedom to claim any Western sub-aesthetic without justification. He showed that Western can be queer, extravagant, political, and deeply personal all at once.

The style to copy: Limitless exploration. If Lil Nas X taught the fashion community one thing, it’s that Western is a language you can say anything in.

Kacey Musgraves: the original Space Cowgirl

Before Space Cowgirl became a documented, named sub-aesthetic, Kacey Musgraves was embodying it on stage and in her music videos. Her tour outfits, Western silhouettes in iridescent materials, cosmic colors, starry details, defined an entire visual language.

What she brought to Western style: Proof that Western and futurism aren’t opposites. Stars, planets, and cowboy boots share the same imagination of the American infinite. Musgraves made that connection obvious.

The style to copy: Shiny, iridescent materials in a recognizable Western silhouette, hat, boots, fringe. Futurism as a styling tool rather than a break from Western.

To go deeper, check out our specialist articles: Beth Dutton style: recreate the Yellowstone look, The best Western TikToks to recreate: 15 viral videos decoded.

TikTok and the anonymous creators who changed everything

Celebrities legitimized Western, but it was TikTok creators who ensured its grassroots spread. Without them, Beyoncé’s or Yellowstone’s influence would have stayed inside its media bubble.

How TikTok spread Western: The platform excels at turning cultural references into accessible practices. Western creators on TikTok did something essential: they showed how to integrate cowboy boots and cowboy clothing into real wardrobes, with real budgets, in real cities.

The formats that worked:

• Western “get ready with me”: getting dressed for an ordinary outing while adding one Western piece
• “Styling challenges”: showing ten ways to wear one pair of cowboy boots
• Before/after transitions: a basic outfit transformed by adding a Western piece
• Western “thrift flips”: turning second-hand pieces into Western-leaning looks

The impact on sub-aesthetics: Every sub-aesthetic we documented in our guide to Western sub-aesthetics was popularized and sharpened by TikTok creators. Coastal Cowgirl got its name from a video. Bubblegum Western emerged from a hashtag. Space Cowgirl was codified by creators who loved Kacey Musgraves and sci-fi at the same time.

The virtuous cycle: from runways to the streets

What sets today’s Western revival apart from fleeting trends is the two-way nature of its influence. It’s not a top-down movement where celebrities decide and the public follows. It’s a dialogue.

Yellowstone creates Beth Dutton. Thousands of women take inspiration from her on TikTok. Those creations flow back up to stylists and brands, who build them into their collections. Isabel Marant sends cowboy boots down the runway. Independent creators spot those runway pieces and translate them into accessible looks. The cycle starts again.

This mechanism explains why Western has managed to stick around where other trends vanished after one season. It doesn’t depend on a single source of influence, it feeds on all of them at once.

For you, as someone interested in Western style, that means one concrete thing: you don’t have to wait for next season or the next celebrity to know whether the trend will last. It lasts because it includes you in the making of it.