Picture the moment she walks out to accept Entertainer of the Year at the CMA Awards. The hat goes on first, wide-brimmed and tilted just so. The bell-bottoms flare out over a pair of platform boots, the hem brushing the floor with every stride. There is fringe somewhere on the look, swinging when she moves. The whole outfit reads loud and proud before she ever reaches the microphone, and that is exactly the point. This is a woman who decided long ago that she would rather be unmistakable than blend in, and she built an entire visual identity out of that decision.
For curvy and plus-size women watching at home, there is something worth studying here, and it has nothing to do with measurements. It has everything to do with how a person dresses when they have stopped asking permission to take up space. Let us break down the look, piece by piece, and turn it into something you can wear to a concert, a party, or a Tuesday at the grocery store.
Who She Is and Why the Style Lands
Lainey Wilson was born in 1992 and raised in Baskin, Louisiana, a farming town of around 170 people. Her father is a fifth-generation farmer and her mother taught school. As a kid she saw the Grand Ole Opry and decided that stage was hers. She moved to Nashville in 2011 and lived in a camper trailer parked outside a recording studio, with the studio owner covering her water and electricity so she could keep chasing it. Her breakthrough came with “Things a Man Oughta Know,” which reached number one on the country charts after its 2020 single release.
The accolades stacked up fast. She won a Grammy in 2024 for Best Country Album with the aptly named “Bell Bottom Country.” She has taken home CMA Entertainer of the Year twice, in 2023 and again in 2025, joining Taylor Swift and Barbara Mandrell as one of only three women to win that top honor more than once. At the 2025 CMA Awards she swept album of the year, female vocalist, and entertainer, pushing her CMA total to a dozen trophies.
Here is the part that matters for this conversation. Wilson has been open about how viral attention to her body, particularly her curves, could have rattled her, and she chose to lean in instead. She has joked that fans “find the music through the butt, and they plan on sticking around,” adding that she is “trying to embrace it.” When the comments rolled in, she landed on a now-famous coping strategy, asking herself “What would Dolly Parton do?” That is the whole philosophy in one line. She does not treat her body as a problem to be styled around. She treats it as part of the show.
That is why her style resonates with women who have spent years being told to minimize themselves. Wilson does the opposite, on the biggest stages in the world, and gets handed the industry’s highest awards while doing it.
The Bell-Bottom Signature and How to Wear It at Any Size
Bell-bottoms are not a phase for Wilson. She has said she has worn them since she was a little girl, and when she was grinding for traction in Nashville, she started wearing them every single day on purpose, as a way to stand out. She has been blunt about it: you are not going to catch her in skinny jeans. The look became so central that she named her Grammy-winning album and her bar, Bell Bottoms Up, after it.
The good news for curvy and plus-size readers is that a flared or bell-bottom jean is one of the most genuinely body-celebrating silhouettes in denim, and the reason is proportion, not concealment. A flare that opens up below the knee balances a fuller hip and thigh, creating a long, continuous line from waist to floor. You are not hiding anything. You are giving your whole shape a frame that moves with you instead of cutting you off.
A few specifics to make it work at every size:
Reach for a high rise. A high-waisted flare sits at your natural waist, defines the smallest part of your torso, and keeps everything smooth through the hip with no waistband gap. Many curvy-fit lines are built with extra room through the hip and thigh and a contoured waistband for exactly this reason.
Mind the hem length, because this is where flares live or die. The hem should nearly graze the floor when you are wearing your shoes. That unbroken vertical line is what gives the silhouette its drama and its height. If you are petite, look for short or petite inseams so the flare still opens fully without pooling on the ground. If you are tall, like Wilson on her platform boots, embrace a longer inseam and let it sweep.
Let the flare do the talking and keep the top half fitted. A tucked-in top, a fitted western shirt, or a body-skimming bodysuit balances the volume at the hem. This is the same logic Wilson uses when she pairs wide denim with a structured jacket.
And do not skip the boots. A heeled boot or platform under a long flare adds height and keeps the leg line going. Wilson’s stage height gets a real boost from her platform boots, and the same trick works in everyday life.
Hats, Fringe, and Statement Pieces
If bell-bottoms are the foundation, the cowboy hat is the crown. Wilson is almost never photographed without one, on stage, on the red carpet, or at an award show. She has estimated she owns north of 200 of them, and she has her own collaboration with hat maker Charlie 1 Horse. Stylists who dress her have described two non-negotiables for any Lainey look: bell bottoms and a statement hat.
A wide-brimmed hat is a gift for anyone who wants instant presence. It draws the eye up, frames the face, and adds vertical lift to your whole silhouette. You do not need 200 of them. One good felt hat in a neutral like camel, black, or cream will anchor dozens of outfits. If a full cowboy hat feels like a lot for your everyday life, the same principle works with a structured wide-brim wool hat or a bold beret. The goal is a deliberate piece up top that says you dressed on purpose.
Then there is fringe, the other pillar of the bell-bottom country aesthetic. Wilson works fringe into jackets, skirts, and accessories, and has paired fringe coats with snakeskin-print bell-bottoms for maximum movement. Fringe is playful, it catches the light, and crucially it moves when you move, which makes any body look dynamic and alive rather than static. A fringe jacket thrown over a fitted top and flares is practically the whole formula in one layer.
For statement pieces beyond the hat and fringe, think turquoise jewelry, a bold belt buckle, layered necklaces, and a great pair of boots. These are the details that turn jeans and a top into a look. They also happen to be size-free. A turquoise cuff or a stack of rings fits the same whether you are a size 10 or a size 26, which makes accessories the most democratic part of any wardrobe.
Color and Pattern Confidence
Diet-culture styling advice spent decades telling fuller-figured women to stick to black, avoid prints, and generally apologize for existing. Wilson’s entire wardrobe is a rebuttal. She wears rich jewel tones, metallics, snakeskin, animal prints, rhinestones, and embroidery, often all at once, and the effect is joyful rather than busy.
The lesson is that color and pattern are not risks to be managed. They are tools. A bold print or a saturated color reads as confidence, and confidence is the most flattering thing a person can wear. If you have been defaulting to black because someone once told you it was safe, this is your sign to try the emerald flare, the wine-colored fringe jacket, the snakeskin boot.
A practical on-ramp if big color feels new: start with one statement piece against neutrals. A bright top with your darkest flares. A patterned jacket over a solid base. Once you see how good it feels, you can build up to a full Lainey-level mix. There is no rule that says a curvy body cannot wear a loud print, and there never was. The only rule is to wear it like you mean it.
Texture counts too. Suede, denim, leather, satin, and embroidery layered together give an outfit depth and richness. Mixing textures is an easy way to look pulled together without relying on a single expensive piece, and it photographs beautifully under stage lights or kitchen lights alike.
Where to Shop the Look
You do not need a stylist or a stage budget to build this wardrobe. Plus-size western and flared options have expanded enormously, and several real retailers carry them right now.
For flares and bell-bottoms, Maurices is a strong starting point, with plus-size flare and wide-leg jeans generally running through the mid-twenties in size and including curvy-fit options built with extra room through the hip and a higher rise. Petite and short inseams are available, which solves the hem-length problem for shorter frames. Expect to pay around 50 to 70 dollars a pair.
Wrangler, a heritage western brand, makes high-rise flares in its Heritage line that nail the retro bell-bottom shape, often in the 60 to 90 dollar range depending on the wash. Cavender’s, a western specialty retailer, carries plus-size bell-bottom, flare, and bootcut jeans alongside boots and hats, which makes it a convenient one-stop for the full aesthetic. Torrid is another reliable plus-size destination for flares, fringe jackets, and bold prints, with frequent sales that bring jeans down to around 40 to 60 dollars.
For hats, Charlie 1 Horse is Wilson’s actual collaborator and sells her signature styles, with quality felt hats typically running well over 100 dollars. If that is a stretch, western chains and even budget-friendly retailers carry wide-brim felt hats in the 30 to 60 dollar range that deliver the same silhouette. For turquoise jewelry, fringe, and belt buckles, look to western boutiques, Etsy makers, and Amazon, where prices range from around 15 dollars for a cuff to whatever your heart and budget allow.
The point is that the bell-bottom country look is buildable in pieces, on a normal budget, over time. Start with one great pair of high-rise flares and one hat, and you are already most of the way there.
The Confidence Lesson
Strip away the rhinestones and the awards, and the real thing Wilson is selling is a posture toward your own body. She has talked about choosing outfits by asking what makes her feel like she “can really do anything and walk somewhere with confidence.” Notice that the question is about how the clothes make her feel, not about whom they please or what they hide.
That reframe is available to anyone. So much fashion advice aimed at curvy women is secretly about shrinking, about lines that “slim” and cuts that “minimize,” as if the goal of getting dressed were to take up less room. Wilson’s whole career argues the opposite. She got bigger, louder, and more herself, and the industry handed her its top trophy twice for it.
You do not have to love every inch of yourself on every day to borrow this. You just have to be willing to dress the body you have today as if it deserves the good jeans, the statement hat, the color you have been eyeing. Confidence, as she demonstrates, is often a decision you make with your wardrobe before you fully feel it. The bell-bottoms and the brim are not a disguise. They are a declaration.
Putting It On
Tomorrow morning, try one piece of it. Pull on a high-rise flare that grazes the floor over a heeled boot, tuck in a fitted top, and add one bold thing, a hat, a fringe jacket, a turquoise cuff. Stand in front of the mirror and resist the urge to find what is “wrong.” Look instead at the long clean line the flare just gave you, and the way the brim frames your face.
That is the entire playbook. A silhouette that celebrates your shape, an accessory that crowns it, a color that announces you, and a refusal to dress in apology. Lainey Wilson built a Grammy-winning, double-Entertainer-of-the-Year career on those four moves and a pair of bell-bottoms she has worn since she was small. The clothes are buyable. The attitude is free. Both of them fit, at every single size.
