Kemo Sabe certainly isn’t the only Western-themed shop in Aspen, CO, but it might be the most well-known, thanks to influencer Alix Earle.
While on vacation in Aspen last month, Ms. Earle did some shopping for custom hats at Kemo Sabe with some friends. Soon after she stepped out, she was met by a local who seemed skeptical of her new look.
“So we all made hats at Kemo Sabe, because we’re trying to get into the western spirit of Aspen,” Ms. Earle said in a Tik Tok video captured moments after her shopping spree. “And this girl comes up to us and says, ‘I like your suit Aspen.’
“We were humiliated very quickly,” Ms. Earle added, using the word “real” to emphasize her point.
The video, which has received nearly 4 million views, sparked an online debate about the difference between authenticity and cosplay. Some commenters also discussed the cost of Kemo Sabe’s hats, which range in price from $350 to several thousand dollars.
Founded in 1990 by Tom and Nancy Yoder, the boutique-meets-bar — which also stocks belts, boots and other western gear — 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, a zoologist from Ohio who had moved to Aspen and worked her way up the Kemo Sabe corporate ladder, and her brother, Bobby. A month later, the pandemic hit the United States.
The Kunkles were able to keep the store afloat with the help of vendors who provided them with products to sell with the promise that they would be returned. Their bet paid off. With Europe closed to travel, customers “flooded our stores, so when we opened the onslaught of human beings that hit the mountain towns was unbelievable,” Ms. Kunkle said in a video interview.
Businesses continued to grow with the help of celebrities and influencers. Ms. Kunkle and the brand’s vice president of marketing, Kate Valdmanis, noted that the endorsements were entirely 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 showing her and friends making personalized hats in the store.
“She made this video by herself,” Ms. Kunkle said. “She paid for her hat. We didn’t promise her anything. He did it organically – which is crazy to me, because he’s one of the top influencers in the world and he gets paid for everything.”
Ms. Kunkle doesn’t even like social media.
“Social media is scary for me,” she said. “I do not understand it. I’m older, almost 54. So for me, I didn’t grow up with it — I don’t get it. So I’ve always been kind of a jerk in the room where they say, “Oh, an influencer, let’s tip a hat to them!” I say, “No, no. If they don’t already believe in it, then why should I pay someone to speak highly of us?”
“That’s not real,” Ms. Kunkle added, “and I want us to be real.”
Ever since Ms. Earle’s “Aspen suit” TikTok went viral, Ms. Kunkle’s son has been following the online conversation about Kemo Sabe. When he read her “all the terrible things being said on TikTok,” the owner said she started to cry.
“This is a real store,” Ms. Kunkle said. “Real people work here. We are hard working locals and they think we are some big huge celebrity backed corporation. But we don’t pay for celebrities. We don’t do any of that. We never have.”
Ms. Valdmanis, marketing director, supported this view. “People have this perspective of Aspen — and it’s true to some extent — that we’re like Rodeo Drive in the mountains,” he said. “But we were a mining town. We were cowboys first.”
The store’s name is another point of contention. “Kemo sabe” is the nickname given to the protagonist of “The Lone Ranger,” a long-running radio and television series that began in 1933, by his Native American sidekick, Tonto.
They don’t exist definitively accounts about the origin of the phrase and whether or not it is a term that comes from an actual Native American language. Whatever the case, it’s certainly not what a white couple would be advised to name a 21st century store.
“People get mad at us for that, too,” Ms. Kunkle said.
The store’s name, which Mr. Yoder chose more than three decades ago, doesn’t seem to have affected his business, especially when it comes to the rich and famous. Loyal customers include Beyoncé, Shania TwainKardashian-Jenner family, Rihannaand Kevin Costnerwhich has 160 sq summer-house in Aspen.
The store’s popularity increased when it served as the setting 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”. Over daisiesactresses Lisa Rinna and Kathy Hilton fought over which tequila was better, Kendall Jenner’s 818 brand or Mrs. Hilton’s Casa Del Sol.
“It was really fun to watch it up close and it was very real, I’ll tell you,” Ms Valdmani said. “This was not scripted.” 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 going to the store to see where the ‘tequila-gate’ fracas took place.
The rise of cowboy style has also made hats more of a fashion staple, especially among some well-paid young urban dwellers with social media accounts who flock to Aspen to ski and hit the bars.
A recent TikTok went up by Austin-based content creator Hannah Chody, more than a dozen women — including herself — showed up at the Aspen airport, each wearing a personalized cowboy hat from Kemo Sabe.
“Bypassing Kemo Sabe would be criminal,” captioned Ms. Chody, who bought her own hat at the Park City location.
For Ms. Chody, the hat is a fun keepsake. “People get them just to have the experience of going and making them and crossing them off their bucket list,” he said, “especially if they’re visiting New York or Chicago or Los Angeles.”
And while the 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,” he said. “And, really, it’s terrible when people are like ‘the Aspen suit.’ It’s not what it is. They are people who want a taste and feel of the west. Why can’t everyone have that feeling without making fun of it?”