Carrie Underwood changed seven times each night during her Las Vegas residency. Miranda Lambert had to be talked into changing once.
“I saw Carrie’s show and it was great,” Lambert says, “but it’s not me. I’m squeezing this sausage into its casing one time and that’s it. Once I’m dressed, I’m done.”
But after a lot of cajoling, her longtime stylist Tiffany Gifford got Lambert to agree to squeeze herself into a second outfit during her residency on the Vegas Strip.
On Wednesday night, Lambert will take the stage at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino for the final performances of her Velvet Rodeo show. Lambert will be playing nine shows through April 6.
“I loved it,” Lambert says of her residency. “I’ve been on the road since I was 17 so it’s been a good break to be in one place and have people come to me.”
A lot of those people do their best to mimic the singer’s wardrobe by getting decked out in fringe and sequins. Lambert says this is a departure from what her fans wear during her regular shows when she tours around the U.S. “Vegas is a destination, it’s not where you go after you had to work all day,” she says.
This down-to-earth attitude is what helps the country music superstar stay connected to her fanbase. The 40-year-old Texas native got her start in 2003 on the Nashville Star singing competition, where she finished third, and has since sold more than 7 million records and amassed a mantle full of Grammy, Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music awards.
So it made sense that Planet Hollywood would offer its stage to Lambert.
Although she is more comfortable in casualwear — “I’m not a clothes person, I’m a jeans and T-shirt girl,” she says — Lambert knew that playing a series of shows in a city known for its glitz and glamour required her to stretch her wings.
Her inspiration for the outfits came after she was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 2021 and visited the museum in Fort Worth, Texas, that documents the history of women in the West. “There were the most amazing outfits,” Lambert recalls. “It was so inspiring. So we used that as inspiration as well as the heyday of Elvis.”
Gifford, who has worked with Lambert for nearly 14 years, says the performer sent her photos of the outfits on display at the museum, including Nudie suits and elaborate Western-themed embellishments. “That started the embroidery train,” Gifford says.
The 18 looks that Lambert has to choose from during the residency were each custom designed by Gifford in partnership with a few hand-picked designers including The Blondes, Fort Lonesome, Rose Cut Clothing and Snake Farm Creative. They are embellished with rhinestones, fringe and crystals from artisans including Diane Coppola-Prato, Mary Freeman, and others.
The silhouettes — jumpsuits, bodysuits, short skirts, and shirts — are what Gifford knew Lambert would feel comfortable wearing. “I had some ideas, like a tear-away outfit, but she said absolutely not,” Gifford says with a laugh. “There was even trepidation about changing but she finally agreed to change one time.”
The piece de resistance is a fire jacket that Lambert wears during her “Gunpowder and Lead” song. “I wanted to create something that hadn’t been done before but that was intrinsically her,” Gifford says. So she combined Lambert’s love of fringe with the pyrotechnics first made famous by Lady Gaga and created a jacket where the fringe shoots out jets of fire when Lambert presses a button. Gifford worked with the creator of Lady Gaga’s fire bra, who helped her with the look.
Lambert named each of the looks in the show, including the Rhinestone Cowgirl jumpsuit, the Go Sit on a Cactus two-piece and the Pigeon Toed Daisy bell bottom number (sorry Lainey).
“I’m a songwriter so I had to name them all — they all have their own personality,” Lambert says.
Her favorite is the Rhinestone Cowgirl jumpsuit, which weighs 25 pounds and takes four hangers to hold in her dressing room. “It’s heavy, but so stunning in person,” Lambert says.
She also singles out the Lone Star Elvis turquoise outfit that was patterned after the Elvis jumpsuit he wore during his show in Vegas as another of her favorites.
Gifford says there were a couple of pieces that were “repurposed” from other events, such as the Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow jumpsuit that Lambert wore on the Billboard Music Awards in 2022 while performing with Elle King. “She hates the idea of wearing things once,” Gifford says.
Her boots are embellished versions of the collection offered on Lambert’s Idyllwind line of apparel and footwear; the jewelry and hats were also customized for the singer. “This is definitely the most bling and custom that she’s ever had,” Gifford says.
Overall, Lambert describes the wardrobe as “flattering and empowering. You feel good when you trust your clothes.”
Once the residency ends next month, Lambert will retire the outfits to her archive in Nashville, where she saves some of the more-special outfits she’s worn over her two-decade career. And she may add a couple to her Café Rosa Tex-Mex restaurant and bar in Nashville or lend them to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame for an exhibit.
She also will head back out on the road, bringing her music to several festivals and fairs this summer, including Stagecoach. “I love Vegas, but I miss all the small towns I’ve visited for so long,” she says.
In addition to her residency, Lambert says she’s been “writing a ton” of new music, working on her charity, MuttNation Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the adoption of rescue pets and supports animal shelters, as well as her Idyllwind collection.
Lambert named her fashion line after her horse, Ellie Idlewind. “I started riding horses at 30,” she says, “and I had never ridden a horse in my life before that. But Ellie taught me.”
So when she was searching for a name for her line, she immediately thought of her horse and the courage it took to learn the new sport and it just felt right. “I feel like our brand is about empowering women,” she says. “Be who you are and take risks.”
Lambert took her own advice when she announced last year that she was leaving Sony, her record label of 20 years. Since then, she and Jon Randall, a record producer, singer and songwriter with whom she’d recorded “The Marfa Tapes” collaborative album in 2022, teamed up to create Big Loud Texas, a partnership with Big Loud Records.
“Jon approached me,” she says and it didn’t take much convincing for her to get on board. “It’s such an opportunity to help the next generation.”
She says most labels don’t employ artists as managers, but in Lambert’s opinion, “we’re really the only ones who understand what it’s really like” to try and start a music career. So at Big Loud Texas, artists will have “someone to sing songs to and come to for advice,” she says. The label’s first signing was Dylan Gossett, who Lambert says is “kicking ass.”
And as far as her own singing career is concerned, Lambert’s latest single is “Space in my Heart,” a duet with Enrique Iglesias. “We have the same manager,” she says, and they’d talked about teaming up in the past, but every song she sent to him didn’t pass muster. So Iglesias sent her the song that he’d first recorded in Spanish and they agreed to cut it. It will be on his next album, “Final Vol. 2,” that he says will be his last.
Lambert admits that the pairing is a bit unorthodox, but she’s always been one to chart her own path.
“It seems unlikely but we’re both in our 40s and dedicated our lives to music, so it made sense,” she says.
