Nudie Cohn December 15, 1902 – May 9, 1984
A year-long exhibit about Nudie recently opened at the Country Music Hall of Fame. A walk through the museum is already a tribute to Nudie, and this installation provides more detailed information about the most famous rodeo tailor with further examples of his work, like Merle Travis’ embroidered guitar shirt and tie, and Freddie Hart’s shirt with heart-shaped yoke and matching pants from the early 1950s.
Freddie Hart in one of his many Nudie outfits.
It’s not part of the show, but one of my favorite Nudies is Little Jimmy Dickens’s bird suit.
Another is Merle Travis’s oak leaf suit.
Here’s Nudie in his store with Merle Haggard.
This is the Nudie shirt I acquired at great peril….more on that shortly.
Last summer, I made a replica of the Nudie outfit Hank Williams was wearing the night he died for the Kansas City run of the play Nobody’s Lonesome For Me, at the request of American Heartland Theatre costume designer Paul Hough.
Actor Matthew Brumlow as Hank Williams Sr.
The actual outfit is on display at the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery Alabama.
I saw this Hank Williams “riding outfit” in the extensive “Williams Family Legacy” exhibit at the Hall of Fame.
Hank Williams sure had a lot of clothes.
The gabardine that Nudie used for outfits like these isn’t easy to come by these days. Even in Manhattan, as director Craig Fols and I scoured the stores (in a heat wave), fortunate to find what we wanted with the very nice Sammy at Elegant Woolen and Silk, 174 Orchard Street on the rapidly-gentrifying Lower East Side.
Like Lankershim Boulevard in Hollywood used to be home to several western tailors, Orchard Street once had a busy fabric trade (catering particularly to tailors) that is now down to a few stores including Sammy, who had the selection and service I liked best.
Jaime Castaneda, who worked for Nudie, still makes incredible show pieces from an unassuming storefront at 5753 Lankershim.
Nudie’s operation at 5015 Lankershim was a more visible landmark till it closed in 1994, ten years after his death.
Manuel Cuevas, who worked for Nudie along with Castaneda, is the only other tailor actively making impeccable westernwear in the Nudie tradition.
Manuel suits in his Nashville shop
Jaime was the shirt and pant maker at Nudie’s, and when Manuel opened his own studio, he worked as his head tailor for sixteen years.
The Nudie Hall of Fame show title comes from a song first recorded by Golden West favorite, Rockabilly Queen Wanda Jackson, sounding pure country in 1956.
