This shirt. Look at it. Look at the bright red color. Look how it fits Jimmy. Look at the texture. Look at the pockets. Look at the embroidered branding of The Four Sixes ranch. Look at the perfectly placed Wrangler logo.
It was season 4 episode 9 of Yellowstone. The moment I saw this shirt, I fell in love with it.
I look the shirt up. It’s selling for $80 on eBay. Blood, bright red. So inviting. Not an exact match to the color in the show, but close. Very close. In a parallel universe, I buy it.
Yellowstone has some of the most thoughtful and quality costume design I’ve seen on a TV show.
Image courtesy: Vogue.com
Image courtesy: Vogue.com
Image courtesy: Vogue.com
Kevin Costner’s jackets, Rip’s workwear, Jamie’s suits, the Indian dressing. It’s all good. I try to find out where I can get some of those clothes. I find a reddit thread and a couple YouTube videos about the jeans and jackets of Yellowstone. A few brands stand out - Schaefer Outfitter, Filson, Sheplers, Ariat, and Carhartt. Filson’s Yellowstone collection looks pretty. I have my eyes set on a pair of rugged cowboy boots from Tecovas. I love how they look. The stitch pattern, the off-white contrasted against the brown. Loud, sure. But oh so stylish.
Too expensive. Maybe someday. By the way, the show featured a few local, homegrown, legacy businesses too, that make their products by hand. Support the people you’re making the show about—very cool.
Aside: Audience and critics on Rotten Tomatoes say the show went to shit in season 5. The general consensus is that it didn’t really have a story anymore, Kevin Costner turned into a rampant goon, there’s this unnecessarily outlandish portrayal of Beth (“What woman behaves like this?”, to quote one angry reviewer), and overuse of country music starlets. The show did not make sense anymore. But that’s exactly what’s good about it. I can almost see Taylor Sheridan as Travis, sitting on his horse inside and saying, “Okay, we showed what we wanted to show the world. Now we do this for us.”
I hop on to the Yellowstone merch website. I look through a few hats. I see a black one with the ranch name in yellow. Pretty. Classy. I’ll ask somebody coming from the US to get it for me. I think it’ll look great on a warm-neutral color palette outfit.
Aside: I have been thinking about what Evan Armstrong, a writer at Every.to, said on a podcast episode: “I’m scared of writers who only read. It is important to be a multi media person.” I think it’s so true. Sometimes I get the thought that watching films and TV shows is a waste of time. That’s what we’ve been taught to think. The TV is even called The Idiot Box. But like most things in life, this too isn’t binary. It’s not bad to watch TV. I wouldn’t know the things I know and wouldn’t be the person that I am today if it hadn’t been for the films and TV shows I watched. I think they make me a well-rounded person, even teach me new ways to think.
Is there a TV show whose fashion you were struck by?
