Reese Witherspoon Just Turned 50: A Look Back At Our Iconic Interview For Harper's Bazaar
She Told Me She Wore Cowboy Boots To Her Own Wedding.
Reese Witherspoon officially joined the 50 club on Sunday. Welcome, it only gets better from here.
Witherspoon’s milestone birthday has me thinking back to 2017, when I was knee-deep in production on the mega September issue of Harper’s Bazaar. September is always the big kahuna, as it unveils the runway trends we’ll all supposedly be wearing for the coming season, so the pressure is on for it to be star-studded.
Working at Bazaar back then was not for the faint of heart—whether it was the September issue or not. Our job was always to push the envelope (and send ourselves mad in the process) to land a major ‘coup’. That often meant pairing big-name stars and fashion’s elite to do any number of wild and wonderful things.
Case in point: we once put Rihanna in a shark’s mouth. And I was once tasked with pairing a naked Lady Gaga with Karl Lagerfeld, holding his Instagram-famous cat Choupette, at the top of the Eiffel Tower. OK, that last one’s not actually true, but you get my drift.
If you follow fashion (and even if you don’t), you’ll be painfully aware that some trends come and go faster than we can change our undies, and others continue to roll around again and again. And again.
This was 2017, y’all, and the Western look was going strong. Look around now, and you’ll see that tassels, Western shirts, boho-inspired prairie dresses, and, of course, cowboy boots never really go out of style.
They just get better with age.
Like Reese Witherspoon.
It’s impossible not to love Reese—she’s like the labradoodle of A-listers. And not just because she’s a big-deal Oscar-winning actress and producer with incredible range (not to mention a fellow Aries).
But because she’s a boot-scootin’, down-to-earth Southern belle at heart.
If you’re a Gen-Xer like me (and our gal Reese), you might even feel like you know her. After all, we’ve watched her literally grow up and followed her rise, fall, and “get back up again” through three decades.
From the baby-faced 21-year-old who married Ryan Phillippe, became a mom at 23, and starred as the forever-iconic Elle Woods in Legally Blonde at 25. To her Oscar-winning performance as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line and an Oscar nod for trekking in Cheryl Strayed’s steps in Wild.
And like a fine wine, we now get to drink her in as the Type A manipulator Madeline in Big Little Lies and as co-anchor and sidekick to Jennifer Aniston on The Morning Show.
With all signs pointing to the Western front as the trend of the moment, I proposed to Bazaar’s then-editor, the iconic Glenda Bailey, to have Reese Witherspoon speak to the trend. She is, after all, from Nashville, Tennessee, and founded the classic Americana, Southern-infused lifestyle brand, Draper James.
As these things go, unless they have a magazine cover secured (or a new movie to plug), it’s almost always a hard “no” from big-swinging Hollywood agents to get an A-lister to do anything. Well, sugar, imagine my delight when I was told Reese was up for it.
And yep, she was as effervescent, charming, and Southern as she seems.
Bless Her Heart.
Reese Witherspoon On The Western Trend
”I was always dressing in prairie skirts and cowboy boots when I was little. I loved to watch Little House on the Prairie and play cowgirl. I mean, you’re talking to the girl who wore cowboy boots to her own wedding reception.“
”My favorite childhood memories are rooted in country music, doing square dances in cowboy boots. I learned to clog and line-dance before I learned the fox-trot. I’m very influenced by country singers like Loretta Lynn and, of course, Dolly Parton is my biggest idol.”
”Western is such a huge style in Nashville. Maybe it’s [the Western trend] about returning to a time and a place that people find comforting, and when everything seemed simpler.”
”I do love the look of a pretty dress or a floor-sweeping skirt with cowboy boots. I remember being in fifth grade and begging my grandmother to buy me a prairie skirt, and when she finally did, I wore it every day with cowboy boots.”
”I have so many pairs of cowboy boots; I buy them new from Betty Boots when I’m in Nashville. The intricate stitching and detail on Western shirts are so pretty and add a little something, as do tasseled bags and purses. And I love cowboy hats, obviously.”
Love Reese Witherspoon and all her movies.