There's a practical reason behind the design of just about everything Western, from the pointed toes, high heels and spurs on cowboy boots to the leather chaps, kerchiefs and wide-brimmed hats.
There's even a reason - right from the horse's mouth - as to why Western shirts have snaps instead of buttons.Snaps, says Jack A. Weil, allow the cowboy to break away if his shirt gets hung up on barbed wire or a fence post or a tree branch or the pommel of his saddle.
Weil, founder of Rockmount Ranch Wear Manufacturing Co., first put snaps on Western-style shirts in the late 1930s. Then in 1946 he switched to the now-familiar pearl grippers. Retailers were reticent because clothes washers had wringers, and they were afraid the snaps would get smashed. But their fears were unfounded, and snaps became de rigeur.
"It's the snaps that make a shirt Western," says Steve Weil, Weil's grandson and business partner.