Lifestyle
'Reclaiming red, white and blue': What fans wore to Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ show in L.A.
Beyoncé kicked off her highly anticipated “Cowboy Carter” tour this week in Los Angeles at the SoFi Stadium, where she’ll be gracing the stage five times through May 9.
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As expected, the Beyhive (a.k.a. her most dedicated fans) showed out with their western-inspired outfits, which were heavily influenced by the Grammy Award-winning country album. Attendees wore bedazzled cowboy boots and hats; chaps; fringe and leather; red, white and blue; outfits inspired by Beyoncé’s past tours and video looks; and, of course, denim on denim on denim.
Before the second show on Thursday night, we caught up with some of Beyoncé’s fans to ask them about their outfit inspiration, why “Cowboy Carter” resonates with them and what cowboy culture means today. Here’s what they had to say.
Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kylia and Kyana Harrison, 24, of Santa Barbara
Tell us about your outfits.
Kylia: She actually bought our tickets Monday night and surprised me while I was at work and was like, “Are you down?” I was like, “OK, I’m so down.” And then we kind of just put this together.
Kyana: She had everything already. We do Stagecoach and Coachella, so we already had those pieces. So then we kind of just put everything together.
What is your favorite part of your look?
Kylia: Mine is definitely my cowboy hat. I’ve had it for two-ish years. I go to NFR [National Finals Rodeo] every year, so I wore it. I feel like it’s just kind of my thing.
Kyana: My body chain.
What song are you most excited to hear tonight?
Kylia: I want to hear “I’m That Girl.” It’s very sensual and just like that moment.
Kyana: I want to hear “Tyrant.” I feel like it puts me in a “bad girl” energy, like real boss. I love that song.
Cowboy and western culture have evolved significantly over the years, and it feels like Beyoncé is showcasing what it means to her and it’s history. What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Kyana: Personally, I love it because … I know that cowboys first were African American, so I think that she’s taking control of that and putting her twang on it.
Hope Smith, 31, of Vancouver, Wash.
Tell us about your outfits.
I love DIYing and I never learned my lesson on taking too big of a project, so I redid her Dolce & Gabbana outfit [from] “Renaissance.” I went for the hardest option. This is my favorite outfit that Beyoncé wore during “Renaissance.” She had a blue and a red [version]. It was hours and hours of rhinestoning, multiple seasons of “Love Is Blind” and a lot of podcasts. I was rhinestoning last night, actually, and there is glue in my purse and rhinestones just in case. I’m hoping it holds it together. So, yes, I loved “Renaissance” and I am overjoyed to be here. I turned 30 with Beyoncé at “Renaissance,” and it was like my my coming of age. Hopefully, [my outfit] makes it to D.C. in a few weeks.
What is your favorite part of your look?
This fan came to two “Renaissance” shows with me. It’s really cheesy. She’s inspired me as an artist. I’m a teacher and I’ve been pursuing art outside of teaching, and it’s, like, brought me into the person that I am. So this is designed after her opening screen for “Renaissance,” and she later sold a version of it online, so Beyoncé has copied me. Thank you, Beyoncé. You can credit me later with tickets, and so, yes, it is being held together with tape because I was clacking it too much in Vegas and Seattle.
What song are you most excited to hear tonight?
I feel like “II Hands II Heaven” is going to just kill it live, but I’m going to cry the whole time. I had to buy tissues on the way over because I will sob.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
I feel like she’s tapping into the original cowboy culture. Like, as a white woman, I’ve learned a lot from this album, like Beyoncé has really tapped into the history. The origin of the word “cowboy” was used to be derogatory towards Black men and these are things that, like, we didn’t learn in school, especially growing up in Oklahoma, and I just have loved the history and the commentary through it. I have loved watching people’s responses and I’m really excited to see them respond more to this show certain parts of it on Monday were just amazing and I love her pushing against the norms and the white narrative that we tend to fall into. She’s forcing us to think — if you stop and think — but then a lot of people are coming to judgments without doing their research.
Johnathan Rojas, 34, and Oscar Saucedo, 32, of Orange County
Tell us about your outfits.
Rojas: My inspiration is like Amazon, but make it look like not Amazon. I love to sparkle. Cheap but not cheap. Expensive.
Saucedo: For me, I just went with the red, white and blue with the boots.
What is your favorite part of your look today?
Rojas: Definitely the shirt. Can’t get enough, and the pink Cubans on the wrist like get into it.
Saucedo: For me, definitely my hat with the rhinestones, and my boots have the American flag.
What song are you most excited to hear tonight?
Rojas: I love a good ol’ classic like “Diva.” You know, “female version of a hustler.” I love to hear the classics and then anything from “Renaissance.”
Saucedo: “Cozy.” That’s my song.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Rojas: It’s cool that Beyoncé, like, took it over, because it’s become more of like a mainstream and less conservative. We can all kind of can put our twist and our spin on it and really be creative with it.
Saucedo: Being Mexican, it comes from my culture. I’m glad that she’s making it part of it, that she’s making it more mainstream so everyone can see just other cultures and not just whatever is popular at the moment.
Ronny G., 28, of Salt Lake City
Tell us about your outfit.
I want to do a real country one, so I got the boots from Mexico, got the Levi bootcuts, fringe on the top and the back. I had to show off for Beyoncé. I love [her].
Which part of your outfit are you most proud of?
It took me 20 minutes to get these [bootcuts] on and I did it.
What song are you most excited to hear tonight?
All of them. I just don’t want her to point to me and say, “She ain’t no diva.” That’s all I am concerned about, honestly.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Just getting down and dirty.
Chris Golson, 32, of West Adams; Marquis Phifer, 36, of Houston; Jason Richardson, 39, of Los Angeles
Tell us about your outfits.
Richardson: As much of my personality is upbeat, I’m actually pretty severe with my look, so I love all black. [I have] an Ottolinger vest. I like a high, low [moment]. Cargos. The boots — I don’t know the actual brand, but I do know they hurt, so pray for me.
Golson: My look is giving “Renaissance” meets “Cowboy Carter.” I’m a little bit of cowboy on top, little bit of disco on the bottom, a little bit ghetto country on the bottom, on my feet.
Phifer: I’m giving rich plantation owner. I’m sorry, but in the terms of, like, “I’m from Texas,” so owning a farm, that’s kind of what you do. So it’s giving ownership.
Which part of your outfit are you most proud of?
Phifer: The jacket. It was flown in from Pakistan. I’m from Texas, so there’s like synergy, but I just wanted, like, a little bit of shimmy. [I planned my outfit] for only two weeks. I don’t think too much. Not too much thought. Just execution.
Richardson: My favorite part will probably be the cowboy hat. I mean, I know everybody’s going to have a cowboy hat, but, you know, sometimes you gotta lean into the theme. But I will say I’m a Texan as well. Born in Houston, then moved to Dallas, so we just need to let everybody know that Destiny’s Child has been wearing cowboy hats. They’ve been wearing the denim, been having the nod to country. So I will enjoy this tour because I am Black, I am country, I am from Texas, born and raised. So I’m super excited to enjoy the show.
Golson: My favorite part of my look is honestly the glow. It’s time for Beyoncé to shine. I’m here for it.
What song are you most excited to hear?
Richardson: It’s not even a full song but something about “Flamenco.” Ugh, [it] does something in my spirit. I love the the vocal acrobatics, you know, just reminding people that even though it’s a country genre, she could still skate on the track and get the vocals that she needs. If it’s a full song — let me stick to the theme — I’ma say “Texas Hold ’Em.”
Phifer: We would say “Desert Eagle.”
Golson: That’s our favorite song. It’s f— hot. It’s a moment.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Richardson: What I’ll say about cowboy culture is that she is democratizing the access to cowboys and that cowboy culture. More of a [reminder] that it has its roots across all the demographics, primarily in the South. And so for all those that have grown up in the South, that are fully acquainted with that cowboy culture, but don’t necessarily look the part of mainstream cowboy country music, we’re excited to lean into it. I’ve been called country for a large part of my life. I wish I didn’t lose some of the twang, but I’m super excited that she reminded people about the history of the genre, reminded of the roots and some of the complexions and different colors of country. So I’m excited to see the greatest artist of our living time do what she does best.
Phifer: I’m from Houston, Texas, and we still ride horses in the middle of the street, and that’s just the culture of Houston. I love that she’s able to take the culture and put it on a massive stage to be received. But we’ve been country. We’re gonna live country, die country, and that’s the country culture.
Golson: Honestly, as someone from Philly, I think, this tour, this album, and the magnitude that she’s been able to hit with this has spoken volumes to the amount that we have contributed to music in general, and there is no genre that could define us. It’s just music and it’s just love.
Camilo Aldrete, 21, of Pomona
Tell us about your outfit.
The inspiration was obviously “Cowboy Carter,” but I also pulled from “Renaissance.” I just wanted to be sparkly. I was like, “Silver, why not?” I still wanted to have that cowboy-ness and like a little belt buckle.
What is your favorite part of your look?
I think my shirt. I had to bedazzle it myself. It was fun. It was rewarding to see the outcome. It took me a few days, but I had help too, so it was easier.
What song are you most excited to hear today?
Probably “Bodyguard” and “ll Hands ll Heaven.”
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
I’m Mexican, so I view it from the Mexican point of view, and I think it’s about just being confident, being yourself, standing your ground, knowing what you want to do [and] living in your own vibe.
Maddison Walker, 9, of Carson
Tell us about your outfit.
My mom helped me pick it out, and I was able pick out my pants. I really like my heart pants, and they’re pretty.
What is your favorite part of your look?
I really like my purse. It’s the Marc Jacobs Tote Bag.
What song are you most excited to hear today?
“Texas Hold ’Em.”
Madalyn Young, 55, of Hawthorne
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Madalyn Young, 55, of Hawthorne
Tell us about your outfit.
My outfit is all about animal prints. I love zebras, so you can tell I have the coat, the boots with the fringe, all with the black skirt and the blouse. This is a western-style blouse as you can see with the fringe, the lace and the buttons. What I love about this blouse is the lace. It’s showing a little skin. It’s sexy but at the same time very classy.
What is your favorite part of your look?
I love my boots. These are authentic western boots. There’s zebra print with the fringe, and if you look around, you really won’t see anybody else with the boots on, so I like to be an original person.
What song are you most excited to hear?
“16 Carriages” and, most importantly, “Blackbiird.” It really resonates with me because it was written by the Beatles regarding the Little Rock Nine, and my parents are from Little Rock, Arkansas, and so they lived through that moment and they actually know some of the Little Rock Nine. So it’s very personal for me, and I’m very inspired by that song.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
When I think about cowboys, I even go back to the Lone Ranger. Bass Reeves was actually a Black man from Arkansas. As you can tell, that’s my roots. However, coming to Hollywood, it was kind of … he looked different. The Lone Ranger is actually a true story about Bass Reeves. When you think about the culture of cowboys, they were actually Black men, but they would not refer to them as men, so they called them “boys” — “cowboys.” However, it has just evolved into a culture that has always been a part of my family. I have relatives who were cowboys and actually worked with cattle in Texas, so it’s a culture that never left. It’s just coming back on the scene.
Josh Krantz, 40, of Long Beach
Tell us about your outfit.
What’s funny about the inspiration is that I had a whole ’nother outfit planned, and with the help of a friend, she’s stoning some things for me, but that didn’t come through today. So this is all random s— from my closet that I just pulled together for “Cowboy Carter.” I did not plan this months in advance. However, I did plan the other outfit months in advance, but it may happen on Sunday. I’m coming back for another show.
What is your favorite part of your look?
I did stone this sash myself. This is Beyoncé merch. I’m proud of that because that was a lot of hard work. It took a couple hours, maybe three. I love this fringy rhinestone madness. I love any kind of fringe, so I’m feeling it.
What song are you most excited to hear today?
I’m excited to hear “Why Don’t You Love Me.”
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
I love that. Beyoncé is bringing back that cowboy culture and really making all the white people in America realize it actually started with Black people, especially the house music too, with the “Renaissance” tour. She’s killing it. It’s so rad. I love that we’re all learning a whole new thing through her.
Anthony Pittman, 32, and Jose Mascorro, 32, of Compton
Tell us about your outfits.
Pittman: I painted this jacket when the album came out last year at the end of March. I painted another jacket for this tour as well, but I wore that to opening day, so I wore this one today. My look is basically vintage, mustard kind of vibes. I’ve been an artist for 15 years now. I started painting jackets for Beyoncé during the “On the Run” [tour] and then the Hive started commissioning me to paint jackets for them, so I’ve been doing that as well. I was featured in Vogue, Essence [and] USA Today last year for the “Renaissance” tour, so that’s why I’m back here at the “Cowboy Carter” tour to give you more looks.
Mascorro: For my look, I really just wanted to match with him, so I’m just wearing a Levi’s jacket and jeans, but I wanted to switch it up with the cream.
Pittman: My bandana. This was Grandma’s. It’s been around from like the 1970s, maybe, and it was in her drawer. She passed five years ago, so I’m wearing it just kind of as a token for my grandma.
Mascorro: My boots. I think is the first time I’ve ever really owned boots, so Beyoncé got us all buying boots. Kind of like how my family used to wear boots back in the day, so it’s kind of important to honor that.
What song are you most excited to hear?
Pittman: “Ameriican Requiem.” I love that that’s the opener. I was hoping it would be the opener, and it really sets the tone for the rest of the show. It’s just beautiful.
Mascorro: I think I’d have to agree with that. It’s a powerful song.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Pittman: I was born and raised in Compton, so we have the Compton farms. Not a lot of people know about it, but I basically grew up watching the cowboys ride down the block on their horses, and I still do every single day, so it reminds me of being home, and there’s also this ancestral memory that I have to it because my family is from the South, so I kind of feel more connected to my family’s background and where they came from.
Mascorro: My family is Mexican and a lot of them are from farms, and so it was really nice to kind of wear the same outfits that they wore back home but kind of make it my own vibe with my own twist on it.
Manny Bueno of West Hollywood and Quentin Smith, 30-something, San Diego
Smith: The inspiration for my outfit were the Compton Cowboys, so I wanted to do the flannel, I’ve got the cargos, the Margiela work boots and the cowboy hat.
Bueno: I was here opening night like a true fan [laughs]. I was giving trade the first night, but this is my distressed Y2K meets my version of rustic cowboy. It’s giving roadhouse.
What is your favorite part of your look?
Smith: I love this shirt. It drapes right, keeps me warm. And I love the hat. It’s by a [Latino] designer, René Mantilla. It’s my first time wearing this hat, so if not now, when?
Bueno: I love distressed leather.
What song are you most excited to hear today?
Bueno: I love “Diva.” It’s my favorite and “My House.”
Smith: I missed the “Renaissance” tour, so I’m kind of excited to hear those [songs] live, but of course “Texas Hold ’Em,” all the ones off “Cowboy Carter,” “Ameriican Requirem.” I love that one. Anything she wants to sing to me, I’m here to receive it.
What does cowboy culture means to you?
Bueno: Not to politicize, but [to] politicize, I think we need to take ownership of America and what truly is America. And it’s not Trump’s America. It’s not what’s being played out in the news.
Smith: To add on to that a little bit, a reclamation of not just America but, like, Black America and where our influence lies, and so many difference places that we don’t always think about. So I love see this subtle, quiet reclamation of not only what it means to be an American but what it means to be a Black American. So it’s interesting to see how she kind of plays around with that.
Peter Crawford, 54 and Pieter van Meeuwen, 52, of Santa Barbara
Tell us about your outfits.
Crawford: Obiviously, [the] “Lemonade” [album] inspired it, and I made this dress out of shower curtains, actually, and fishing line, which I made as a tribute to her. I also sewed two wigs together to make this.
Van Meeuwen: We saw the show on Monday, and this is a reference to one of the video looks that is on the background. I fell in love with it that night, and I knew I had to do it. Weirdly, I actually had the supplies ready to go. [laughs] We’ve been to every tour since “B’Day.” We met her at “B’Day” and got to do a meet-and-greet. We saw “Sasha Fierece,” we were in the second row, and she reached through and took my hand when she walked through the audience, so ever since that happened, I just can’t get enough Beyoncé.
What is your favorite part of your look?
Van Meeuwen: I love the sparkle [on my shirt]. I had it made by a young lady named Glittah Gal.
Crawford: The little fringe [on my dress] is made out of fishing line, and I wove every single one of them into the hem of this, so I’d have to say that’s my most special part of this outfit.
What song are you most excited to hear?
Crawford: Always “Ya Ya” for this album.
Van Meeuwen: I love when she does “Ameriican Requiem.” It’s great so I want to see it again.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Crawford: Chaps! Chaps! Chaps! Chaps are going to be everywhere. Chaps already are. There’s going to be short chaps. You’re going to see them on runways. That is what’s happening.
Van Meeuwen: I think cowboy culture is complicated. Whether it’s about Indigenous people and what they had to go through under cowboys, or reclaiming the cowboy spirit of what America was built on — this kind of rough-and-tumble existence. I think Beyoncé has done a beautiful job reclaiming it, making it her own and standing strong in the face of the current administration.
Crawford: And also reclaiming the American flag or reclaiming red, white and blue. Like it doesn’t below just Trumpers; it belongs to everybody. It belongs to the United States of America, and I love that she’s making it chic again.
Neil Torrefiel, 41, and Blake Keng, 38, of San Francisco
Tell us about your outfits.
Keng: I love denim on denim, so I wanted to do something that was flowy, and we love to complement looks with each other.
Torrefiel: Absolutely. And I love black on black, and I wanted to do a fulsome look that was really reminiscent of Beyoncé.
Keng: I’ve been planning [my outfit] for months, and I have a mood board [where] I put all these different outfits together. I come up with it kind of last minute, and then he will kind of vibe with whatever I have.
Torrefiel: I’m laughing cause it literally took me an hour.
Keng: We cannot be more opposite.
What song are you most excited to hear?
Torrefiel: I would really scream like a child if she did the Charlie’s Angels song [“Independent Women, Part 1”].
Keng: I’m ready for this album, “Sweet, Honey Buckin.”
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Keng: It’s like reclaiming what’s ours, and I think that’s what really drew me to her album was reclaiming what is [in] the communities and where it originated from. That spoke to me a lot.
Torrefiel: I think she’s doing a lot to redefine the genre and I deeply appreciate all the work that she’s doing around it. I’m just here to experience all of it.
Teauna Baker, 31, of San Diego and Jeanisha Rose, 34, of Houston
Tell us about your outfits.
Rose: It’s inspired by the song “My Rose” from the CD. It doesn’t say that on the digital version, but I like a rose and my favorite color is pink, so I adjusted it to my liking. It’s one of my favorite songs. It’s so tender. I [rhinestoned] my dress. This outfit was a b— to put together. It took forever.
Baker: I think my outfit is giving “America Has a Problem” … still has a problem. [laughs] I really liked the chaps. As soon as she dropped her picture with the plain white tee and the chaps, from there I was like I definitely need to have chaps. I just wanted to give “high fashion in a plain white tee.”
What is your favorite part of your look?
Baker: It’s the belt. I was a little bit chaotic trying to put this together, and I was on the internet last night looking up horse belts at like 11 p.m., and I was like, “I gotta find a belt to put this together,” and I found this [one] this morning at like 9 a.m. and it was the last one. There was this store in DTLA that had one, and I was like “We have to go first thing in the morning.”
Rose: My favorite part of my outfit are my boots. I got these Cavender’s [Boot City] in Texas. I’m from Texas. She got her boots from Texas too.
What song are you most excited to hear?
Baker: “Spaghettii,” “Ya Ya” or “Heated.” All of ’em to be honest. I’m ready to jam.
Rose: I’m ready to hear “Tyrant.” It’s my jam. I put that on repeat regularly — daily probably.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
Rose: For me, it represents home. I’m used to going on trail rides and things like that since I was a kid, and it’s just a real good time. It just feels like a connection.
Baker: We’ve been here. We do this. This is where we kind of came from, and I feel like she’s taking the time to share what was ours with other people. But really it’s just freedom. I feel a sense of pride. I feel freedom. I feel happiness inside, so it’s really about enjoying African American culture and being able to share it other people, but other people respect it and enjoy it.
Zuri McPhail, 37, of Stockton
Tell us about your outfit.
I love the color pink, so I was like I want to do a pink theme, but I also don’t want to be like everybody else. I pieced this outfit together, and it’s pretty in pink. I like the rodeo. I have a pink horse.
What is your favorite part of your outfit?
My horse.
What song are you most excited to hear?
I looked at the setlist beforehand, and I’m not going to lie, I’m excited to hear the older songs that she’s going to play. I’ve been a Beyoncé fan since I was 13 or 14 so I’m looking forward to the older s— because I’m nostalgic. That’s my s—.
What does cowboy culture mean to you?
You can’t reclaim what is already yours. We were doing the s— before the s— was the s—. I have family who were Black cowboys. We are always the trendsetters. Black women. Black people. We started the s— and it kept getting built on. And I’m just grateful to be here and to see a Black woman do the s— bigger than anybody has ever done it. You can hate on it as much as you want to, but if Beyoncé is doing your genre, you made it. And Beyoncé is from Texas, so if you’re ever going to question like, “She can’t do a country album?” She’s f— country. That is who she is. She is from Texas. She can’t be mad that a Texas woman is tapping into her roots and showing you who she is and who were are.
When John Lantigua, a retired journalist in Miami Beach, checked his email one recent morning, he was glad to see an invitation.
“It was like, ‘Come and share an evening with me. Click here for details,’” Mr. Lantigua said.
It appeared to be a Paperless Post invitation from someone he once worked with at The Palm Beach Post, a man who had left Florida for Mississippi and liked to arrange dinners when he was back in town.
Mr. Lantigua, 78, clicked the link. It didn’t open.
He clicked a second time. Still nothing.
He didn’t realize what was going on until a mutual friend who had received the same email told him it wasn’t an invitation at all. It was a scam.
Phishing scams have long tried to frighten people into clicking on links with emails claiming that their bank accounts have been hacked, or that they owe thousands of dollars in fines, or that their pornography viewing habits have been tracked.
The invitation scam is a little more subtle: It preys on the all-too-human desire to be included in social gatherings.
The phishy invitations mimic emails from Paperless Post, Evite and Punchbowl. What appears to be a friendly overture from someone you know is really a digital Trojan horse that gives scammers access to your personal information.
“I thought it was diabolical that they would choose somebody who has sent me a legitimate invitation before,” Mr. Lantigua said. “He’s a friend of mine. If he’s coming to town, I want to see him.”
Rachel Tobac, the chief executive of SocialProof Security, a cybersecurity firm, said she noticed the scam last holiday season.
“Phishing emails are not a new thing,” Ms. Tobac said, “but every six months, we get a new lure that hijacks our amygdala in new ways. There’s such a desire for folks to get together that this lure is interesting to people. They want to go to a party.”
Phishing scams involve “two distinct paths,” Ms. Tobac added. In one, the recipient is served a link that turns out to be dead, or so it seems. A click activates malware that runs silently as it gleans passwords and other bits of personal information. In all likelihood, this is what happened when Mr. Lantigua clicked on the ersatz invitation link.
Another scam offers a working link. Potential victims who click on it are asked to provide a password. Those who take that next step are a boon to hackers.
“They have complete control of your email and, in turn, your entire digital life,” Ms. Tobac said. “They can reset your password for your dog’s Instagram account. They can take over your bank account. Change your health insurance.”
Digital invitation platforms are trying to combat the scam by publishing guides on how to spot fake invitations. Paperless Post has also set up an email account — phishing@paperlesspost.com — for users to submit messages for verification. The company sends suspicious links to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit that maintains a database monitored by cybersecurity firms. Flagged links are rendered ineffective.
The scammers’ new strategy of exploiting the desire for connection is infuriating, said Alexa Hirschfeld, a founder of Paperless Post. “Life can be isolating,” Ms. Hirschfeld said. “When it looks like you’re getting an invitation from someone you know, your first instinct is excitement, not skepticism.”
Olivia Pollock, the vice president of brand for Evite, said that fake invitations tended to be generic, promising a birthday party or a celebration of life. Most invitations these days tend to have a specific focus — mahjong gatherings or book club talks, for instance. “The devil is in the details,” Ms. Pollock said.
Because scammers don’t know how close you are with the people in your contact list, fake invitations may also seem random. “They could be from your business school roommate you haven’t spoken to in 10 years,” Ms. Hirschfeld said.
Alyssa Williamson, who works in public relations in New York, was leaving a yoga class recently when she checked her phone and saw an invitation from a college classmate.
“I assumed it was an alumni event,” Ms. Williamson, 30, said. “I clicked on it, and it was like, ‘Enter your email.’ I didn’t even think about it.”
Later that day, she received texts from friends asking her about the party invitation she had just sent out. Her response: What party?
“The thing is, I host a lot of events,” she said. “Some knew it was fake. Others were like, ‘What’s this? I can’t open it.’”
Andrew Smith, a graduate student in finance who lives in Manhattan, received what looked like a Punchbowl invitation to “a memory making celebration.” It appeared to have come from a woman he had dated in college. He received it when he was having drinks at a bar on a Friday night — “a pretty insidious piece of timing,” he said.
“The choice of sender was super clever,” Mr. Smith, 29, noted. “This was somebody that would probably get a reaction from me.”
Mr. Smith seized on the phrase “memory making celebration” and filled in the blanks. He imagined that someone in his ex-girlfriend’s immediate family had died. Perhaps she wanted to restart contact at this difficult moment.
Something saved him when he clicked a link and tried to tap out his personal information — his inability to remember the password to his email account. The next day, he reached out to his ex, who confirmed that the invitation was fake.
“It didn’t trigger any alarm bells,” Mr. Smith said. “I went right for the click. I went completely animal brain.”
The new scam comes with an unfortunate side effect, a suspicion of invitations altogether. It’s enough to make a person antisocial.
“Don’t invite me to anything,” Mr. Lantigua, the retired journalist, said, only half-joking. “I’m not coming.”
You want to know where men’s fashion is heading? Follow the geeks.
These are the obsessives, fixated, with a NASA technician’s precision, on how their pants fit or on which pair of Paraboot shoes is the correct pair. These are the obsessives who in the aughts were early to selvage denim (now available at a Uniqlo near you!) and soft-shouldered Italian tailoring in the mode that, eventually, trickled down to your local J. Crew.
And where has the attention of this cohort landed now? On a vanguard of newish-to-the-West labels from Japan, like A.Presse, Comoli, Auralee and T.T.
1
A.Presse is probably the most hyped of this cohort. What other label is worn by the French soccer player Pierre Kalulu and the actor Cooper Hoffman and has men paying a premium for a hoodie on the resale market? Kazuma Shigematsu, the founder, is not into attention. When we spoke, he wouldn’t allow me to record the conversation. Notes only.
“You mean a better-fitting denim jacket that’s based on an old Levi’s thing? Yeah, OK, sold,” said Jeremy Kirkland, host of the “Blamo!” podcast and the textbook definition of a latter-day Japanese men’s wear guy. Mr. Kirkland, once someone who would allocate his budget to Italian suits, admitted that, recently, over the course of two weeks, he bought four (yes, four) jackets from A.Presse1.
“I’m not really experimenting with my style anymore,” Mr. Kirkland said. “I’m just wanting really good, basic stuff.”
Basic though these clothes appear, their hook is that they’re opulent to the touch, elevated in their fabrication.
2
Over the years, the designer Ryota Iwai has told me repeatedly that he is inspired by nothing more than the people he sees on his commute to the Auralee offices in Tokyo. When asked recently if he collected anything, he said nothing — just his bicycle.
3
The true somber tale of this wave. The brand’s founder, Taiga Takahashi, died of an arrhythmia in 2022 at 27. The label has continued to plumb history for inspiration. The latest collection had pieces that drew on bygone American postal-worker uniforms.
An Auralee2 bomber looks pedestrian until you touch it and realize its silk. Labels like T.T3 make clothes that echo the specs of a vintage relic yet come factory fresh, notched up, made … well, better. They bestow upon the wearer a certain in-the-know authority.
And so there is a hobbyist giddiness present on Discord channels where 30- and 40-something men trade tips on how to size moleskin trousers by the Japanese label Comoli; at boutiques like Neighbour in Vancouver, British Columbia, where items like a $628 dusty pink trucker jacket from Yoko Sakamoto and an $820 T.T sweater sell out soon after hitting the sales floor.
What’s notable is how swiftly these geeky preferences have wiggled into the broader fashion community. While I was in Paris for the men’s fashion shows a year ago January, all anyone wanted to talk about were things with a “Made in Japan” tag. I would speak with editors who were carving out room in their suitcases for Auralee’s $3,000 leather jackets.
But these were clothes being shown away from the fashion week hordes. The A.Presse showroom was on a Marais side street in a space about as long as a bowling lane and scarcely wider that was crammed with racks of canvas, silk and denim jackets with Pollock-like paint splatters. There were leather jackets as plush as Roche Bobois sofas and hoodies based on sweatshirts made in America a half-century ago.
I got the hype. After 10 days of puzzling over newfangled stuff on the runways, the display of simple, understandable shapes we’ve known our whole lives, but redone with extra care, couldn’t have felt more welcome.
Kazuma Shigematsu, the A.Presse designer, said he had collected a trove of vintage pieces that he housed in a separate space to plumb for inspiration. He made new clothes based on old clothes that benefited from a century of small design tweaks.
By this January, A.Presse had upgraded to a regal maison facing the Place des Vosges, with giant windows and even more reverent hoodies, even more tender leathers. Back in America, I asked an online department store executive what his favorite thing from Paris was. He took out his phone to show me photos of himself trying on a zip-up leather jacket in A.Presse’s high-ceilinged showroom.
On Their Own Terms
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“We never think about trendiness or popular design details,” Ms. Sakamoto said through a translator. “It’s more like functionality, everyday use.” The label has a thing for natural dyes: pants stained with persimmon tannin, yellow ochre and sumi ink, shirts colored with mugwort and adzuki beans.
The sudden popularity of these labels outside Japan can make it feel as if they are new. Yet each label has built a respectable business within Japan, some for more than a decade. Auralee was founded in 2015. A year later, Yoko Sakamoto4 started its line. A.Presse is the relative baby of this cohort at five years old.
“A couple years ago, we would have to buy off the line sheet or go to Japan and see everything,” said Saager Dilawri, the owner of Neighbour, who has an instinct for what spendy, creative types lust after. “Now I think everyone from Japan is trying to go to Paris to get into the international market.”
This movement’s “Beatles on Ed Sullivan” moment occurred in 2018, when Auralee won the Fashion Prize of Tokyo, granting the designer, Ryota Iwai, financial support. Soon after, Auralee was given a slot on the Paris Fashion Week calendar.
“I had never seen a show before, never thought to do it,” Mr. Iwai said through a translator in February, days after his latest runway show. He has now done five.
As we talked, buyers speaking different languages entered his storefront showroom and ventured upstairs to scrutinize items like a trench coat that looked as if it was made of corduroy but was actually made from cashmere and wool and an MA-1 bomber jacket with a feathery merino wool lining peeking out along the placket.
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The Cale designer Yuki Sato travels throughout Japan to find textiles. Unusually, the company manufactures everything, including leather and denim, in one factory.
At Cale’s5 display off Place Vendôme, the designer Yuki Sato described denim trousers and pocketed work jackets as “modest, but perfectionist.” On the other side of the city, at Soshi Otsuki, whose 11-year-old label Soshiotsuki has gained attention for its warped vision of salary-man suits, I encountered buyers from Kith, a New York streetwear emporium better known for selling logoed hoodies and sell-out sneakers than for tailoring.
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Nearly a decade into its existence, Soshiotsuki has hit a hot streak. Soshi Otsuki won the LVMH Prize in 2025, and he already has a Zara collaboration under his belt. An Asics collaboration is set to arrive in stores soon.
Talking through translators with these designers, I began to worry that it might be unfair to group them together simply because they were all from Japan. Auralee simmers with colors as lush as a Matisse canvas, while Comoli’s brightest shade is brown. Soshiotsuki6 has mastered tailoring, while Orslow is known for its faded-at-the-knee jeans channeling decades-old Levi’s.
Rather, as with the Antwerp Six design clique that sprung out of Belgium in the early 1980s, it is these labels’ origin stories that thread them together.
“They’re being encountered on their own terms and respected on their own account, and they happen to be Japanese,” said W. David Marx, the author of “Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style” and a cultural critic who has lived in Tokyo for more than two decades.
“It is a new era of Japanese fashion on the global stage,” Mr. Marx said.
A Love Affair With Japan
Western shoppers have a history of falling hard for clothes from Japan. In 1981, when Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto crashed onto the Paris fashion scene, buyers swooned for their brainy, body-shrouding creations.
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Recently reintroduced as Number(N)ine by Takahiro Miyashita.
Years later, Number(N)ine7 and A Bathing Ape synthesized trends we would call American — grunge, streetwear and hip-hop — polished them up and sold them back to the West.
8
Years before American men were trawling the internet for A.Presse, they would scour forums for deals on Visvim’s jeans and sneakers. Today, Visvim has stores in Santa Fe, N.M.; Carmel, Calif.; and Los Angeles.
Into the 2000s, clothing geeks were swapping tips on forums like Superfuture and Hypebeast about how to use a Japanese proxy service to buy Visvim’s8 seven-eyelet leather work boots or SugarCane’s brick-thick jeans.
Along the way, “Made in Japan” became a shorthand for “made well.” This was more than fetishization. As America’s clothing factories became empty carcasses pockmarking the heartland, Japan’s apparel industry grew steroidal.
“Japan still has an incredible manufacturing base for apparel that goes all the way from the textiles to the sewing to the postproduction,” Mr. Marx said.
Today, many Japanese labels produce most of their garments and, crucially, their textiles in Japan. When I first met Mr. Iwai years ago, I asked how he managed to create such lush colors. He answered, as if noting that the sky was blue, that he worked with the factories that developed his fabrics. As I spoke with Mr. Sato in January, he shared that Cale’s factory had been in his family for generations and also produced for other Japanese brands that I would know.
Chris Green, the owner of Ven. Space, a boutique in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn that has helped to introduce a number of these labels to an American market, suggested that because Japan is a small country with a fervent fashion culture, a competitive spirit has been stoked.
“They have to be able to cut through the noise,” Mr. Green said, with brands trying to prove that their cashmere sweater can outclass their peers’, that their silks are sourced from finer factories. What’s more, he said, once these brands have nailed a design, they stick with it. That is something that is important to men, in particular, who hate when a brand abandons its favored pants after a season.
Before he opened Ven. Space in 2024, Mr. Green was an admirer of many of these labels, purchasing them during trips to Japan. As we spoke, he was wearing a pair of Comoli belted jeans that he bought five or so years ago. A similar style is still available.
Primed for What They Were Pitching
At the close of the 2010s, streetwear was running on fumes. Quiet luxury was entering at stage left. If the Row and Loro Piana were expert at subtle, fine-to-the-touch clothes, so, too, were the likes of T.T, Graphpaper and Yoko Sakamoto.
“I went from this guy that wears pear-shaped pants to just wearing, like, a denim jacket,” said Chris Maradiaga, a tech worker and freelance writer in Vancouver. His wardrobe today consists of Comoli’s black-as-night trousers and a purple-tinged coat by Ssstein. His kaleidoscopic Bode jackets gather dust.
That Ssstein clothes have landed in the closets of men on the other side of the world defies the early guidance relayed to Kiichiro Asakawa, the label’s bushy-haired designer. His “senpais,” or mentors, warned him that his reduced designs might leave Western audiences cold. “You need something powerful,” they told him.
He tried, but it wasn’t necessary. It’s the most minimal designs — his cotton gabardine zip-ups, his “easy” pleated trousers — that people are most interested in now. “It actually makes me very happy,” he said through a translator. “My instincts were right.” Mr. Asakawa won the Fashion Prize of Tokyo in 2024.
Adapting to North American Markets (and Men)
Several Japanese designers noted that they had modified their sizing to accommodate larger, American bodies.
“I’ll ask them, Can you lengthen the pants by three centimeters? Because you need that for the Western market,” Mr. Dilawri of Neighbour said, noting that the designers were receptive to those requests.
A number of labels, like Comoli and Soshiotsuki, are already oversize. That’s the look.
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Kiichiro Asakawa ran a Tokyo boutique, Carol, before starting Ssstein in 2016. It’s still there. He, too, said he found inspiration in the everyday, for example when watching an elderly couple have dinner across a restaurant.
There is also the matter of price. On the whole, these clothes are not cheap. See Auralee’s silk bomber jacket, which could be military surplus but feels stolen from a sultan’s palace. It’s roughly $1,700. Ssstein’s9 Carhartt cousin chore jacket with a cowhide collar and a factory-massaged fade? About $1,000. Anyone who has traveled recently in Japan, where the yen is tantalizingly weak, will tell you that these Japanese-made clothes, after being imported, are far pricier in North America.
Yet, as luxury fashion labels continue to price out the aspirational middle-class shopper, many of those same shoppers have convinced themselves that the Japanese labels are a better value. A cashmere coat at Prada is $10,000, and you’ll need $1,690 to own a cotton-blend cardigan from Margiela. Similar pieces from Japanese labels can be half that price, or less.
“Brands like Bottega, Balenciaga, the Row — all that stuff — are so unobtainable,” said Mr. Kirkland, whose clothing budget has shifted to A.Presse. “I will never be in that price bracket,” he added, “but I’m wealthy enough to buy a chore coat for $800.”
Of course, Mr. Kirkland and all of the fans of these labels could own a chore coat for far less — but then it wouldn’t be “Made in Japan.”
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