Pate Stetson Agnew, Founder and Creator
Women of the Wild West

I hatched Women Of the Wild West in 1993. I was living with my husband and children on a sheep and cattle ranch in south central Montana. I grew up in the farm land of Connecticut. and Vermont.  My horses and I went to schools in Maryland and Virginia. I spent a year in France before attending Rhode Island School Of Design where I intended to study fashion design.  Unfortunately or fortunately, I got waylaid by every other amazing department, as well, which is how I ended up initially working for NYC photographers and designing fashion magazines before I got around to clothing.

I worked at Harpers Bazaar under Bea Feitler, Ruth Ansel and a host of talented fashion designers, photographers and editors. I went onto Vogue, where I worked under Alex Lieberman. Then I went on Redbook which under Cy Chassler was an invigorating and hardly staid experience I expected, working with and given free range with fashion designers to literary editors and beyond. I was happily lured back to Vermont by the fledgling Country Journal Magazine founded by the creative NYC editors Blair and ketchum. In Vermont I was raising Percheron and thoroughbred horses, as well as registered sheep in my beloved “northeast kingdom.”

I moved to Montana in 1982 to marry a rancher and found myself surrounded by ranches in need of second incomes with many talented ranch women seamstresses. I had that AHA moment…SO here I am in the tempestuous Montana springtime calving, lambing, riding checking cows and  designing high end clothing.

Until relatively recently years ago, my company successfully wholesaled to high end stores from New York to Sonoma, including the prestigious Gorsuch Catalog. We are known for our quality and our fine materials from Italian calves and linens to silk velvets, pima cottons and shearling. In this day and age when everything is made off shore and of suspect quality, all our production is local, including all hand sewing and decoration done by local quilters. We make our clothes to last a lifetime.

Western is the only uniquely American fashion and when mixed with other influences, translated into finer materials, as we do, it is contemporary and extraordinary- a subtle flash of fringe with a gorgeous silk. Look at last season’s Hermes cashmere fringed coat.

We now sell only through our store in the unfashionable-and we hope to keep it that way- town of Big Timber. We sell off the rack, as well as (largely) custom doing everything from black tie for New York to weddings to every day classics. We’re a long way from Paris, but our customers travel here seasonally from New York, Chicago, LA to view our new offerings

I hope you will take the time to look at our website, leave your feedback, ideas  and don’t hesitate to give a call if  you have any questions.

All The Best,
Pate Stetson Agnew