Disco Cowboy Hats and Alien Sunglasses: What Beyoncé Fans Are Wearing to Her ‘Renaissance’ Tour

Silver pants are sold out at the mall, and fancy cowboy hats are taking over TikTok. It can only mean one thing: Beyoncé is coming.

When the singer takes the stage in Philadelphia on July 12, she’ll kick off the U.S. leg of her “Renaissance” world tour, which ends in October in Kansas City. The tour is promoting the dance-music album Beyoncé released last summer that helped her make Grammys history.

Much like Harry Styles fans donning feather boas and Swifties dressing for their favorite of Taylor’s “eras,” Beyoncé’s “Beyhive” loves to attend her concerts in costume. They have been drawing outfit ideas from the “Renaissance” album cover as well as her European tour outfits. 

“Beyoncé gave us this good album, so we really want to show out,” said Dominique Grisby, a 35-year-old government consultant who has tickets to see the artist in Chicago on July 23. “The music is an indicator that she wants us to look flashy, like a big personality.” For Grisby, that means donning a silver fringe romper and jeweled cat-eye sunglasses for the show.

Here’s how other fans are dressing and accessorizing for the tour.

Silver and Sequins  

Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” style has been silver and chrome, and fans are taking cues from her. Video clips of her concerts in Europe show a sea of silver pants and sequins.

“The minute I got to central London, all I saw on the streets were people in glitter and I was like, ‘Ah, yes, you are all going to Beyoncé,’” said Rashida Abena, a 27-year-old government-communications worker in London. 

She went to the London show on May 30 wearing a see-through bejeweled bodysuit she bought online for £70. Abena said her inspiration was the “Alien Superstar” lyric “feed you diamonds and pearls.”

“It is something Beyoncé would wear, and I feel like she would be quite proud of me,” said Abena.

Crazy Cowboy Hats

Beyoncé announced her tour on Instagram in February with a photo of herself wearing a cowboy hat covered in mirror tiles. Her stylists commissioned the piece from Abby Misbin, a 24-year-old milliner in Philadelphia. 

After a Beyoncé fan account identified her as the designer on Instagram, fans flooded Misbin’s Etsy page and she had to turn off sales, she said. Misbin estimates she’s made about 500 hats, each of which takes about six hours. Orders are still coming in, and she has a three-month wait list for the hats. Prices range from $200 to $400, depending on details like fringe and sequin trims. 

After seeing Misbin’s hats on Etsy, Leila Ostria, a Beyoncé fan in Maryland who has tickets to seven U.S. shows, decided to make her own using about $70 worth of materials on Amazon. Ostria, 27, documented the eight-hour D.I.Y. process in a viral TikTok. 

Snappy Hand Fans

Concertgoers are accessorizing with plastic hand fans—a nod to gay club culture, which helped inspire Beyoncé’s album. Her song “Heated” features the sound of a hand fan clapping.

Jediare Rogers, a 35-year-old hotel concierge who has floor tickets to a New Jersey show on July 29, said he is bringing two fans from his collection. He’s mastered the “Heated” TikTok challenge, where people snap fans in tune with the song, and said he wants to be prepared in case Beyoncé notices him.

“If Beyoncé pulled me on stage, I would totally eat it up,” Rogers said. “I know all the claps, I know all the lyrics, and I’ll have my fan right in my waistband.” 

Alien Sunglasses

Inspired by the whimsical sunglasses Beyoncé wears onstage, her fans are buying their own for the tour. 

Nia Fofana, a 17-year-old student in Hamburg, Germany, wore silver futuristic-looking sunglasses she bought on Amazon to match the space themes present in some of Beyoncé’s revolving stage sets. 

Ru Masa, a 21-year-old university student in Manchester who went to the June 2 Beyoncé show, said she saw a lot of fans wearing Y2K-inspired wraparound shades too.

“They are technically biker sunglasses,” she said, “but we like them because they look a little alien.” 

Blue Balloons

Blue Ivy Carter, the 11-year-old daughter of Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z, has been a surprise guest at several of the Renaissance shows. To support the young performer, who has danced with her mom onstage to the song “My Power,” some fans are bringing blue balloons to the shows.

Ostria, the fan in Maryland, said she’ll be handing out blue balloons from Party City to concertgoers in “Club Renaissance”—the name for standing room at the shows.

D.I.Y. Outfit Dupes 

Beyoncé’s eye-catching designer costumes have inspired fans to make their own versions at home. 

Fofana, the student in Hamburg, painted two manicured hands wrapping around a white tank top to emulate the trompe l’oeil Loewe jumpsuit Beyoncé wears onstage. Ostria also copied the Loewe outfit using a nude bodysuit she bought from Boohoo.

“I bought this spray paint glitter to make it shiny like hers, but I have four backup bodysuits in case I mess up,” Ostria said. “I can’t show up to a Beyoncé concert with a crusty costume.”

Inspired by a Bey silver Loewe breastplate, Sandreen Minto, a 24-year-old home aide in Columbus, Ohio, made her own using a plastic mannequin, mirror tiles and rhinestone appliqué. 

“I’m thinking about making a matching jacket, but I don’t know if it’s too much,” she said before quickly correcting herself: “You can’t ever be too much for Beyoncé.” 

Write to Chavie Lieber at [email protected]