Saddles and Harness

The same principles of expansion through force fuel the demand for football in America as it did during the pilgrim’s Westward expansion.  In fact, perhaps the reason football is so popular in America while it is trumped by sports such as soccer and baseball in other countries is its strong ties to American ideals.  During your standard football game, one team attempts to ‘take’ the other team’s land by pushing through their defenses.  This bears a remarkable similarity to the American settler’s desire to acquire all the land by pushing through the Native American peoples. 

In addition, there are some other similarities in the game, such as collar on an NFL player’s shoulder pads being called a horse collar.  Horses had a significant contribution to the westward expansion, as most all settlers rode on horses or in carriages pulled by horses and oxen. 

In an age where cowboys, Indians, outlaws, and lawmen roamed the rolling plains of the Western United States, there was a distinct fashion and style best suited to a lifestyle of horses, dust, and hard work.  While the Native American Indians had their own style of riding horses, most of the settlers adorned spurs, chaps, cowboy hats, and duster coats.  These items were suited for the environmental conditions as well as spending hours each day on horseback.  As time passed, these standards of Western wear were remade and introduced to the mainstream public, some of which have become popular apparel even in modern times, like the cowboy hat. 

Though the old days of the West will never return, you can still celebrate the ruggedness and tradition of exploration that ushered the Old West into the history books with Western apparel.