INTERIORS

How to decorate like a modern cowboy

Kit out your home like an American ranch with these western-inspired designs, from horseshoe plant stands to chain-link lamps

British designer Kathryn M Ireland’s cowboy style. Image taken from A Life in Design by Kathryn M. Ireland (CICO Books, £40)
TIM BEDDOW

Sunday October 29 2023, 12.14am, The Sunday Times

Fringed suede jackets at the ready: a new wave of 21st-century cowboys and cowgirls are embracing a reboot of all things western. Their pin-up? Clint Eastwood in his spaghetti-western era (circa 1960s).

It all began with footwear. The craze for cowboy boots started at some point last year (even Crocs launched its own £100 version this week) but now design insiders are kitting out their homes in a style that can only be described as new-age rodeo.

Think distressed chocolate leather sofas. Touchable cowhide-upholstered chairs. XL cacti. And the Italian designer Generazione Zordan’s TikTok-famous Texan cowboy boot-shaped vases.

Sophie Pearce, founder of Béton Brut, a design gallery in residence at Paul Smith’s London Bond Street store, says: “Back at the ranch, we do minimalist cowboy.” For a sleek take she suggests “making a statement with a few key pieces against a clean backdrop so it doesn’t become a pastiche saloon. I recommend black ‘pony hair’ — which is actually dyed cowhide — on boxy seating, getting the nap the right way so you don’t slide off your chair. Or try brutalist chunky wood dining from the Catalonian countryside or the plains of 1970s France. Raw unfinished steel or Franz West chain-link lighting add rust and attitude.”

Béton Brut’s black ‘pony hair’ seating

GARETH HACKER

Head to Instagram to snap up vintage wares including patchwork cowhide rugs, horseshoe plant stands and a shelf in the shape of a cowboy boot from the antiques dealer Oculus London, founded by the stylist Alfie di Trolio. “I’ve been buying wire work and things made from old metal bottle tops,” says di Trolio, who is launching a showroom in Camberwell, southeast London, in mid-November. “There’s a folky, crafty vibe that feels like it could be from California or Mexico.”

Cowhide and wirework feature in vintage collections of antiques dealer Oculus London, founded by the stylist Alfie di Trolio

The unofficial queens of rodeo kitsch are Whinnie Williams and Kierra Campbell, the co-founders of the print and pattern house Poodle & Blonde. Their retro-fabulous Appaloosa collection includes several western-inspired designs such as Saguaro Saturn, a wallpaper depicting abstract silhouettes of giant desert saguaro, and Cliftonville Cowgirls (a 1950s-inspired wallpaper with a pattern of illustrated cowgirls and cacti), which has been used to turn one of the bedrooms in Club Jupiter, a holiday caravan in Kent, into a pink ranch-style boudoir.

Whinnie Williams, co-founder of Poodle and Blonde, in the room she designed for Club Jupiter, a caravan in Kent. Clifton Cowgirls wallpaper is £128 per roll (reduced from £160), poodleandblonde.com

JOANNA BONGARD

Tap into the aesthetic with Tuft Luck’s captivating artworks, handcrafted rugs and throws inspired by spaghetti westerns and old tobacco ads (set up by the former model Kara Rose Marshall). Marshall’s work is available at tuftluckstudio.com, Glassette, the online homeware emporium co-founded by Laura Jackson, and her art show Shoot Smoke and Smoulder is opening on November 9 for one week at Have a Butchers gallery at 65 Dalston Lane, east London.

Hand-tufted cut pile shaggy rug, which can be used as a textured painting too; 100 per cent natural dyed wool, from £750, tuftluckstudio.com

For a more classic riff on the look, choose soft furnishings in autumnal shades of burnt ochre, tan and mustard (Soho Home and Toast’s most recent collections fit the bill) and take tips from the British designer Kathryn M Ireland, who has redesigned several American ranches during her 30-year career. “Houses and horses are two of my favourite subjects,” Ireland says. “I love working on ranches where you can bring these elements together as part of a scheme that evokes the idea of this romanticised cowboy living. It gives a warm, rich atmosphere with a sense of fun, which people love.”

To recreate this feeling at home, she suggests keeping your base natural and neutral, focusing on wood, stone and hand-finished plasters. Then for the cowboy effect. “The key here is being clever with your curation — something I speak about extensively in my online course with Create Academy. Think wonderful contemporary barns as opposed to oppressive mountain log cabins. You need to bring in pieces that set a cowboy tone but that are sophisticated and easy to live with. Cowboy style today is a far cry from the American west from days gone by.”

A redesigned American ranch by Kathryn M Ireland

JAKE CURTIS

Ireland is inspired by the past, but to achieve “modern cowboy chic” Ireland’s suggestions include a statement coat rack to display “everyday essentials with more decorative cowboy hats, fine jackets, the odd bridle or cowboy boots” and sourcing second-hand is a must, whether from flea markets or Etsy. “Look for throw pillows, a blanket or a lampshade with oversized whip stitching and paintings which include horses, riding motifs and cattle. Layer up lots of textiles, rugs and throws. A few patterned tiles inset or hung on a fireplace can make a colourful addition without breaking the bank and give a nice western nod.”

Pink-hatted cowboys feature heavily in canvases by the San Diego painter Ben Crase, a favourite of the fashion influencer Lucy Williams, while a strong thread of cowboy culture and western music underpinned artist Layla Andrews’s recent Bastard Gumwood exhibition at the Soho Revue gallery.

Layla Andrews in her studio. The artist takes inspiration from cowboy culture in her paintings

JACOB HILL / @JACOBHILLMATIC

“My grandad is from a little island off the west coast of Africa called St Helena,” Andrews, who counts Barack Obama as a fan, explains. “A significant aspect of Saint identity is country music and culture. It is unclear how exactly it made its way to this tropical volcanic island, but a good guess would be that its nearest land is Ascension Island which became a US military airbase. I assume when Saints would go over to work in the early-ish 20th century they bought it back and it combined with their folk music. I have grown up with threads of country and western culture. Listening to both actual country music and family singing, playing and dancing to it. Also going to Saint get-togethers and seeing excellent cowboy boots and hats.

“My family and I were able to travel to St Helena for the first time last year and experience my grandad’s stories first-hand which was incredibly special. This trip inspired my recent solo show Bastard Gumwood which featured trappings of cowboy aesthetic combined with vignettes of island life. When people picture cowboys they see white men on horses in the US, drinking moonshine and listening to Hank Williams. But from my experience, the best aspects of ‘cowboy culture’ — the sounds, community stories and bold style — transcend the white South and can also be found on a little island in the middle of the Atlantic.”