Want to style like Cornbread Cowboi? A peek inside SC influencer’s closet

Orry Lee has built a massive online following with his mix of humor and nostalgia on social media. But the man with more than 900,000 followers known as the Cornbread Cowboi has also become something of a fashion icon.

Lee has become recognized and recognizable for his outfits that call to mind a certain kind of Southern gentleman, with a taste for vintage clothes and a throwback look to the ‘70s or ‘80s that’s making a comeback in the digital age.

“I’ve never been into matching,” Lee said while looking through the clothes in his closet, contrasting a green hat with his white shirt. “You’d go to school, and get made fun of, like, ‘you’re not matching.’ ... but I’ve never followed trends. I still don’t.”

But Lee’s fashion sense started evolving as early as his school days when he started playing sports. When he got his team’s blue and yellow uniform, he insisted on getting blue cleats and wearing a yellow turtleneck underneath to complete the ensemble. He remembers naming football player and flashy dresser Deion Sanders as his “hero” in the fourth grade.

“A lot of my role models were athletes,” he said.

He credits his current style — showcased in Lee’s widely-viewed social media videos and heavy on vintage clothes and an old-school, blue-collar Southern aesthetic — with influences ranging from Hank Williams Jr. to his father and grandfather in the small town of Williston, S.C.

“I’ve always been my own person when it comes to style. It goes back to my roots,” Lee said. “I’m not dressed like I’m at a disco. I like country music”

He hopes that all of the attention on his videos on sites like Tiktok and Instagram, and the way he dresses in them, will inspire his male viewers to give a second look to how they dress. “I want to be, not a beacon of light to the Southern man, but I want to let you know you can take pride in how you dress,” Lee said.

During The State’s visit to Casa Cornbread, he wore a Richard Petty t-shirt and a Quaker State cap with a pair of snake-skin boots, a fairly typical Cornbread outfit. His closet features more shirts of Petty, Merle Haggard and Cale Yarborough (representing Timmonsville, S.C.), plus several takeoffs of Burt Reynolds — Smokey and the Bandit, Skoal Bandit Racing and the old Tampa Bay Bandits USFL team.

Lee finds some of his clothes in local thrift shops, which can often have a well-loved item at a bargain. But he also searches the internet for rare finds, and he has some custom-made and tailored items in his repertoire as well.

He says finding older clothes, either through thrift stores or online, tend to be longer lasting and more form-fitting than clothes today.

“It’s half-polyester, half-cotton, so it’s very stretchy,” Lee said. “When I tuck them in, they fit close to my body, it shows your shape, but it looks good.”

While Lee remembers older men being sticklers for grooming and appearance when he was growing up — “pull up your pants, tuck your shirt in” — he doesn’t see many men today worry as much about what they wear.

“It seems like a lot of guys don’t care about how they dress, or their wife buys their clothes,” he said. “But I call it looking good, and there are a lot of ways for men like myself to look good... and a manly way of dressing to take pride in how you look.”

It can take a while to compile a similar sartorial experience — “I didn’t start out with this closet of Southern gold,” Lee says — but it doesn’t have to be expensive. Lee said many of his clothes were bought for the price tag of a nice dress shirt at a major retailer, and “shirts back then were made to last a lifetime.”

That aesthetic informs the branded offerings at Lee’s own CornbreadCountryClub.com.

But other pieces are more specialized. Lee owns two belts emblazoned with his name and the word “Cornbread,” with his own logo designed by his brother. A family in El Paso made several pairs of cowboy boots for him, and his channel has a deal with BluBlocker sunglasses, which the Cowboi can be seen wearing in many of Lee’s videos.

“The way I feel is, when I buy a piece of clothing, like a belt, from an artist, you’re supporting that artist,” Lee said.

The men of South Carolina don’t have to dress exactly like the Cornbread Cowboi, but Lee hopes his curated closet encourages others to take a look at their own wardrobe, if only for their own enjoyment.

“If you look good, you feel good,” Lee said.