YEAR OF THE CAMPUS COWBOY
The heartiest perennial on the American campus scene, the look of the cowboy West, has had a big dose of Vigoro this summer. In Saint-Tropez the young Riviera cavorters—who often send fashion waves sweeping across the sportswear world—have forsaken last season's sailor garb for the guise of the gunslinger: pants that look perilously close to falling down, saved only by a silver-buckled belt. On the Boulevard Saint-Germain in the Paris student quarter, a new shop called Ranch sells calico couture, while around the corner at the American Surplus Shop there is a run on genuine imported wheat-colored jeans. Back home in the U.S., stores expect to sell more than 100 million pairs of jeans this year. In the natural wheat color, neater than the old blues, jeans have become a campus uniform, sometimes with Shetland sport jackets. Even the Far East will have a bit of the flavor of the Far West when members of the U.S. Olympic team arrive in Tokyo wearing a cowboy hat called the "LBJ."
The fad for western clothing has caused old-line manufacturers to come up with such innovations as corduroy jeans, shirts and jackets, as demonstrated here by college students who spend vacations working at the C Lazy U Ranch in Granby, Colo. Western shirts with traditional snug fit and snap closures now come in Ivy League stripes, and the campus jacket of the year is made of a rugged brushed cowhide called "rough-out." For the college girl some of the best of the West comes from the East, as Seventh Avenue designers saddle up to ride the trend.
See-through sweater of fishnet wool knit is Saint-Tropez-inspired topping for Justine Purdy's frontier pants, which are of gray wool jersey bonded to stretch knit.
At sunset cook out by a C Lazy U lake, Lynda Griner (left) wears western-cut jacket and pants of brown sueded calfskin. Linda Dickson's sheepskin jacket is trimmed in buckskin, her frontier pants are corduroy. Terry Murray's cowboy jacket is also corduroy, as are western-cut shirt and jeans worn by the chef, Hank Custer.
Rough-out leather jackets, cut, stitched and snapped like a wrangler's denim model, are hotly popular in the West and are now turning up in the East as well. One firm, Jo-O-Kay of Ardmore, Okla., has sold 100,000 of them this year in 42 different models. They are made of brushed cowhide, lined in warm Orion fleece. Mike Irving and Justine Purdy wear rough-outs over snug-fitting cowboy shirts in Ivy League stripes.
Justine Purdy's dress-up cowboy outfit is made of sheer red Irish wool tweed with jean stitching outlining seams and pockets. Calico bandana and low-slung, silver-buckled cowboy belt complete the look.
WHERE TO BUY
Page 40: Lynda Griner's suede jacket ($90) and pants ($70), by Samuel Robert, are at I. Magnin, West Coast; Neiman-Marcus, Dallas. Linda Dickson's jacket ($70), by Samuel Robert, is at I. Magnin; Neiman-Marcus. Plaid shirt ($8) is by H Bar C. Frontier pants ($22.50) are at Miller's, New York. Terry Murray's corduroy jacket ($25), by Gordon-Ferguson, is at Granby Trading Post, Granby, Colo.; Morris Men's Shop, Chicago; Roger Kent, New York. Wheat Levi's are $4.50. Hank Custer's wheat-color shirt ($8) and jeans ($11), by H Bar C, are at Beckwith's, Boston; Western Ranchmen Outfitters, Cheyenne. Page 41: Justine Purdy's frontier pants ($16), by Sport whirl, are at Billy Lewis, Inc., Dayton; The Shop for Pappagallo, Scottsdale, Ariz. This page, above: Both jackets are by Jo-O-Kay; the man's, in Aztec gold color, is $30, the lady's $29. Both are at Granby's Trading Post; Miller's; Western Ranchmen Outfitters. Striped western shirts are by H Bar C. At right: Justine Purdy's shirt ($35) and pants ($25), by Donald Davies, are at Lord & Taylor, New York. All hats are by Stetson; cowboy belts and boots by Justin, Fort Worth.
PHOTO
RICHARD MEEK
THREE PHOTOS