Kacey Musgraves's Reformation Collection Successfully Pushes the Horse Girl Trend Agenda

In 2024, it feels delightfully inevitable that Grammy-winning singer Kacey Musgraves would design a Reformation collection heavy on so-called horse girl style. Country—in music and in style—is having what culture critics might call a moment.

Still, a Bowery Hotel party toasting her collection, featuring a crowd dressed in cowboy boots, denim corsets, and buckle bunny studs, is a pleasant surprise for the Deeper Well singer-turned-designer. "I've always thought it was cool, but there was a time when I was a lot younger that I felt like kind of an outsider because of what I wore," Musgraves tells me.

All these years later, she's the last person to gatekeep the yeehaw approach to getting dressed. "I am so f cking glad to see people catching up and having their own fun moments with it. [Horse girl style] looks good on every single person."

Her Reformation lineup doesn't go as Western as the fringe and rhinestones Musgraves hit the yodeling circuit with as a child in Golden, Texas. But it's clear from the collection that horse girl style is, as Musgraves says "in her bones."

The collection includes everything from on-the-nose equestrian pieces—like knee-high leather riding boots, denim shirting, and vintage hair scarves—to ribbon-sleeved silk dresses and cashmere matching sets for lounging around the estate (or ranch) after a long ride through the rolling hills. Fall plaids and rich shades like crimson and navy are in abundance; so are sweet touches of lace and bows. It's English countryside gone ever so slightly country—curated by someone who clearly knows her way around a stable and a shop-worthy linesheet. Prices are all relatively affordable, with most pieces retailing under $200. There's also a bit of her DNA in the packaging: Musgraves's sister, Kelly Christine Sutton, photographed the campaign on location in the Cotswolds.

There are a few pieces that bring horse girl flair to even broader 2024 trends, like a plaid matching set comprised of a strapless top and pedal pushers. "Capri pants are back! Peplum is back!" Musgraves laughs. There are also two ways to try a denim-on-denim outfit in the vein of Beyoncé, Bella Hadid, and Musgraves herself: either a denim, tie-front corset top or an oversize denim shirt, both paired to wide-leg jeans in various washes. Musgraves also designed pointy-toed denim boots for a full-on commitment to the look.

It's genuine to how she dresses: "I will always be a fan of a Canadian Tuxedo," she says.

From a puff-sleeve mini dress known as the "Bunny" to her Cotswolds plaid overcoat, don't be surprised to see Musgraves wearing these pieces on her Deeper Well tour. "Seriously, I approached this much like when I am putting together a tour. I want to put together a tour that I would personally want to go see. This is a line of clothing that I would personally wear and I would never create something that I wouldn't personally stand behind first."

Odds are, most women getting in touch with their inner rodeo queen won't be wearing these pieces on a ranch or a rolling countryside estate. So Mugraves worked closely with the Reformation team to give the silk dresses and denim some real-world viability (with a heavy emphasis on recycled materials—Musgraves is a sustainability girl, too).

In the process, "I learned that I do actually know a lot more about tailoring than I thought that I did," she says. She mentions she'd gone back and forth with Reformation team on the tiniest details to get each piece right—whether adding a hook and eye closure here or changing the color of a stitch there.

"Getting into those details was really fun: Like, what makes a garment look good on everyone's body, the proportions that are important, the fabrics. I approached this much like I approach all creative endeavors, I just put my whole self into it," she explains.

Her whole self is evident in the lineup's range. It's cohesive, but it's not one-note. The underlying message? "There is no wrong way to be a horse girl," Musgraves says. "You can be an English lady. You can be a Western lady, and this collection does lean a little bit more into the equestrian English world. My heart will always be rooted in the Western community, but I love so many different things."

To paraphrase her song "Dime Store Cowgirl," you can take Kacey to a different kind of country, but you'll never take the country—or the horse girl—out of her.

Kacey Musgraves x Reformation is now available online and in Reformation stores.