Ablaze with vibrant colors and sparkling with rhinestones, country music performers have been lighting up stages and turning heads in spectacular, custom-designed Western wear since the late 1940s. Recalling an earlier era of “dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud music,” when musicians in honky-tonks and nightclubs had to go the extra mile to command an audience’s attention, Buck Owens quipped…

Partly out of necessity, but mostly out of a desire to entertain, flashy, cowboy-inspired stage attire became, by the 1950s, the signature look for a multitude of pickers and singers.

Drawing from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s exhibit galleries and extensive collection of stage costumes and archival materials, photographs, and moving images, Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter examines the dazzling artistry of the Western-wear designers whose couture designs have helped to create an indelible image for country music—one that has inspired fashion far beyond the stages of barn dances and honky-tonks. The exhibit is also a story of immigrants, who carved a successful niche for themselves by embracing America’s fascination with cowboy culture and Western imagery.