Nudie:The Rodeo Tailor

Nudie the Rodeo Tailor is an illustrated biography of Nudie Cohn, the Los Angeles clothier credited with putting rhinestones on cowboy dress.

Gibbs Smith published the hardcover in 2004. Mary Lynn Cabrall wrote it with Jamie Lee Nudie, the granddaughter of Nudie and Bobbie Cohn, who grew up in the family shop. The publisher’s description follows Cohn from his birth in Kiev in 1902 to his first store, Nudie’s for the Ladies in New York, which sold lavishly ornamented G-strings and stage costumes. It then follows him into western wear. The gold suit he made for Elvis Presley is credited with launching him to stardom. His clients later included Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, John Wayne and Johnny Cash.

The author notes say Cabrall learned leather tooling and later took up machine embroidery on a sixty-year-old chain-stitch machine. She and Jamie Lee Nudie now work to re-create the Nudie style.