It all started with the Eras Tour for me. I’d secured my tickets for the soon-to-be-enormous Taylor Swift show after a sweaty hour of fumbling with Ticketmaster. My TikTok feed was soon flooded by videos of fellow concertgoers dressed to the nines, often dressing as either Swift herself or an obscure lyric from one of her songs. That’s when I realized that just-purchased tour T-shirts were no longer going to cut it for pop-show fashion.
Since then, I’ve gone out of my way to dress my best for my favorite divas on the road. I bought clips festooned with purple butterflies for Olivia Rodrigo and printed red lipstick onto my body with Saran Wrap for Sabrina Carpenter. I saw similarly costumed fans at Harry Styles’s Love on Tour (feather-trimmed, light-up cowgirl hats are de rigueur at these events now) and Beyoncé’s Renaissance extravaganza, where every iteration of silver was part of the informal dress code.
Now another pop songstress is cruising through Texas, and it’s one of our own: Kacey Musgraves. I have tickets to one of her Austin shows, and this will be probably the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen her perform live. Onstage, she’s frequently barefoot, with her long, dark brown hair worn down, in loose waves. This casual, earthy air meshes perfectly with the vibe for Deeper Well, her sixth studio album and perhaps the one with the strongest visual language. The video teaser for the album, which aired as a commercial during the 2024 Grammys, featured lush green fields, animals, writing in a journal, braids, handkerchiefs, embroidered dresses, and flowing water. Right away, viewers knew what to expect: cottagecore, natural beauty, writing by a hearth, a heroine from a Victorian novel running across windswept cliffs—but with a guitar.
In February, to further confirm this new aesthetic, Musgraves released her second collaboration with candle company Boy Smells: a moss-colored jar with wax containing scents of mushroom, raspberry, wet patchouli, and sage. The cherry on top of the whole vision board was the September release of Musgraves’s clothing collection with Reformation. (Interesting that the brand is known for its sustainability practices, while concert clothing has become a fast fashion bonanza.) It was almost as if the singer was directly communicating with fans about what they should be wearing to her shows. Pieces include coats, frocks, tops, and pants made with cashmere, denim, and silk, and the clothes are described on the website as “made for frolicking.” Point taken!
Taking all this inspiration into consideration—including Musgraves’s looks on tour so far, which have included lots of olive and sage greens, browns, pinks, plaids, and sheer fabrics—I knew I couldn’t show up to one of her Austin shows at the Moody Center in any old thing. If I’m going to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets, transportation, drinks, and merch, my thought process goes, I might as well look good while I’m there. Reddit and TikTok are full of ideas, but I decided to ask fellow concertgoers about their plans.
Taylor Prewitt, Texas Monthly’s newsletter editor, who’s going to one of the Austin shows, is planning to wear a corset from Austin brand Psychic Outlaw, which upcycles quilts into clothing, and patchwork jeans she made herself. “I thought it made sense because the new album has a quilted theme,” she told me, referencing the record’s logo. “When I bought my tickets in February, I was like, ‘I can’t wait to get a new outfit,’ but as it got closer, I didn’t want to spend a ton of money,” Prewitt said.
Sarah Katon, a fan from Arkansas who’s going to one of the Dallas shows, did make a couple special purchases for the event, including a flower crown from Etsy, which she polled Redditors about to help her choose. She also bought a necklace from Musgraves’s collection with Emilia Ceramicas. This will be Katon’s first time seeing Musgraves live, a moment she’s been looking forward to since first listening to Golden Hour. “It’s like her music comes to me at the perfect time in life,” Katon said. “I feel like I’m finding a ‘deeper well’ within myself—that resonates.” To go with her flower crown and necklace, she’ll be wearing a flowy green dress inspired by the song “Jade Green” from the album. “I wanted to wear something light, airy, whimsical, and colorful,” she said.
That’s the inspiration I’m taking, too, with my long, white skirt, handkerchief, and green, printed corset top. Not only is it a blast to walk around an arena and see how fans have creatively interpreted the artist and the art, it’s also just a joyful experience to be in community with others who have been touched by the work beyond a casual level. We wear our fandom like a badge of honor.
