Welcome to the Wild West

There is an element of romance to the American West that is intangible and undeniable.

We know it. You know it. Hollywood knows it; Dances with Wolves, Lonesome Dove, Tombstone. The Wild West was a romantic era in American history. It was grit and glamour, it was shootouts and saloons, it was danger and drama and delight. It was a time of virtues and vices, of defending honor and defining a nation, of indulging in entertainment. And it stole our hearts long ago.

In honor of our 30th anniversary, every collection in ‘I Go Back’ is a piece of our past in some way. Unlike Matagorda, which encapsulates an entire upbringing, Cody reflects on a singular weekend; a spur of the moment, drive-through-the-night road trip to Wyoming, our up close and personal brush with the Wild West.

“I fell in love with Bill Cody on that trip,” said Cheryl McMullen, designer for Double D Ranch. “Didn’t everyone? That’s who he was. He romanced the West. The entire country, really. I remember stopping in my tracks when I saw his show jacket; it was beaded deer suede with fringe that was beaded and fringed and was trimmed in silk. It was stunning to me in 1993, imagine how alluring it must’ve been in the 1800s. And his thigh-high boots. He had style beyond the times, and he had charisma. He was a showman, through and through, and that’s how the West was really won. Would there have even been a Wild West era without Buffalo Bill? Would we still be talking about it? Would Hollywood even be making western movies?”

Being immersed in that atmosphere, surrounded by those images and artifacts, had an effect that has resounded for nearly three decades for Double D Ranch. It was tangible history from a period that seemed larger than life, and from that moment on, the Wild West had our hearts.