The most famous cowboy hat in the world at the moment

Kemo Sabe is certainly not the only Western-themed store in Aspen, Colorado, but it may be the most famous, thanks to influencer Alix Earle.

While on vacation in Aspen last month, Ms. Earle shopped with some friends for personalized hats at Kemo Sabe. Shortly after she stepped out, she was approached by a local who seemed skeptical about her new appearance.

“So we all just made hats at Kemo Sabe because we’re trying to get into the western spirit of Aspen,” Ms. Earle said in a TikTok video recorded moments after her shopping trip. “And this girl comes up to us and says, ‘I like your Aspen costume.'”

“We were humiliated very quickly,” Ms. Earle added, pulling out the word “really” to emphasize her point.

The video, which has been viewed nearly 4 million times, sparked an online debate about the difference between authenticity and cosplay. Some commenters also discussed the cost of Kemo Sabe hats, which range in price from $350 to several thousand dollars.

Founded in 1990 by Tom and Nancy Yoder, the boutique-meets-bar has since expanded to six locations, including Vail, Colo., Jackson Hole, Wyo. and Park. City, Utah.

In 2020, the Yoders sold the store to Wendy Kunkle, an Ohio zoologist who had moved to Aspen and worked her way up the corporate ladder at Kemo Sabe, and her brother Bobby. A month later, the pandemic hit the United States.

The Kunkles were able to keep the store running with the help of salespeople who offered them products to sell with the promise of a refund. Their bet paid off. With Europe closed to travel, “customers flooded our stores, so when we opened the onslaught of people hitting the mountain towns was unbelievable,” Ms. Kunkle said in a video interview.

Business has continued to flourish thanks to the help of celebrities and influencers. Ms. Kunkle and the brand’s vice president of marketing, Kate Valdmanis, noted that the endorsements were completely organic: Kemo Sabe does not pay celebrities or online influencers for product placement.

Ms. Earle, who traveled to the ski town with her boyfriend, NFL player Braxton Berrios, followed up her “Aspen costume” video with another TikTok post in which she and her friends made personalized hats in the store.

“She made that video herself,” Ms. Kunkle said. “She paid for her hat. We didn’t promise her anything. She did that organically – which I think is crazy because she is one of the best influencers in the world and she gets paid for everything.

Ms. Kunkle isn’t even into social media.

“I find social media scary,” she says. “I do not understand. I’m older, almost 54. So for me, I didn’t grow up with it – I don’t understand it. So I’ve always been kind of the idiot in the room where they’re like, ‘Oh, an influencer, let’s give them a hat!’ I’m like, ‘No, no. If they don’t already believe in it, why on earth would I pay someone to talk good about us?’”

“That’s not real,” Ms. Kunkle added, “and I want us to be real.”

Since Ms. Earle’s ‘Aspen costume’ TikTok went viral, Ms. Kunkle’s son has been keeping up with the online conversation about Kemo Sabe. When he read her “all the horrible things said on TikTok,” the owner said she started crying.

“This is a real store,” Ms. Kunkle said. “Real people work here. We are hardworking locals, and they think we are big companies backed by celebrities. But we don’t pay for celebrities. We don’t do things like that. We never did that.”

Ms Valdmanis, the marketing director, agreed with this view. “People have this perspective on Aspen — and to some extent it’s true — that we’re like Rodeo Drive in the mountains,” she said. “But we were a mining town. We were cowboys first.”

The name of the store is another point of contention. “Kemo sabe” is the nickname given to the main character of “The Lone Ranger,” a long-running radio and television series started in 1933 by his Native American sidekick Tonto.

There are no conclusive ones accounts about the origins of the expression and whether or not it is a term descended from an actual Native American language. Either way, it’s certainly not what a white couple in the 21st century should call a store.

“People get angry about that too,” Ms. Kunkle said.

The store’s name, which Mr. Yoder chose more than three decades ago, appears to have had no impact on its business, especially when it comes to the rich and famous. Loyal customers include Beyoncé, Shania Twainthe Kardashian-Jenner family, RihannaAnd Kevin Costnerwhich has a plot of 160 hectares vacation home in Aspen.

The store’s popularity increased when it served as the backdrop for the so-called “tequila-gate” episode of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” In the 2022 episode, Kyle Richards introduced the cast to Kemo Sabe and his “VIP bar.” About margaritascastmates Lisa Rinna and Kathy Hilton got into an argument over which tequila was better, Kendall Jenner’s 818 brand or Ms. Hilton’s Casa Del Sol.

“It was a lot of fun to see in person and it was very real, I’ll tell you that,” Ms. Valdmanis said. “That wasn’t written.” Ms. Kunkle declined to say which tequila is most popular with her customers, describing them as “very different” from each other. And now some “Real Housewives” fans are heading to the store to see where the “tequila-gate” fracas took place.

The rise of the cowboy style has also made hats increasingly a fashion item, especially among a group of well-paid, city-dwelling youth with social media accounts who flock to Aspen for skiing and hitting the bars .

A recent TikTok uploaded from Austin-based content creator Hannah Chody showed off more than a dozen women – including herself – at the Aspen airport, each wearing a personalized cowboy hat from Kemo Sabe.

“To skip Kemo Sabe would be criminal,” Ms. Chody, who bought her own hat at the Park City location, captioned the post.

For Mrs. Chody the hat is a nice souvenir. “People get them just to have the experience of making them and crossing it off their bucket list,” she said, “especially if they’re visiting from New York, Chicago or LA”

And while the big influencers may annoy some TikTok commenters who find their style inauthentic, Ms. Kunkle says she embraces all kinds of customers.

“They want to feel the romance, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” she said. “And it’s actually terrible when people are like ‘the Aspen costume.’ That’s not what it is. They are people who want to experience the taste and feeling of the West. Why can’t everyone get that feeling without people making fun of it?”