WESTERN STYLE : DESIGN : Cowboy Chic

Today’s Western wares--many of them at hold-your-horses prices--are romanticized versions of the primitive tables and chairs, hutches and dinnerware that decorated the ranches of yesteryear. Upholstered pieces in baby soft leather are unabashedly luxurious while artists’ designs play at whimsy. Reissues of Wallace China Co. dishes from the ‘40s are popular, as are made-to-look-old leather placemats, pillows, lamps and chandeliers. The allure of Wild West decor in our microchip age? “It recalls a simpler time, when there were heroes,” says Saundra Abbott of the design store Rituals. “It’s part of our collective American heritage, it’s furniture that makes us feel good.”