The jeans:
Cowboys take great pride in their jeans. Many have them professionally cleaned, starched, and with a perfect crease down the leg.
“It looks good,” explains Travis Reay, an Alberta, Canada-based steer wrangler of few words sitting high atop his horse.
Gary Williams, the general manager of the rodeo, says it’s more than that. Starched jeans “repel dirt,” he explains.
Williams’ jeans are so starched they feel like cardboard. He has a couple closets full of jeans just like the spotless ones he has on, with a crease that nearly stands at attention. And he rarely wears a pair more than once before he sends them off to the cleaners again. But, he pointed out, he could and they would still be relatively clean.
Creased and starched jeans seems to be the cowboy’s uniform. And Reay is right: they look good.
