American Eagle has gone country.
Two weeks after debuting a Spring 2026 collection with Ella Langley, the clothing brand is going all in with partnerships with Bailey Zimmerman and Stagecoach, where it will be the exclusive denim and apparel sponsor. Zimmerman and Langley are both playing the April 24-26 festival on opening night.
“Country music is defining culture these days,” says American Eagle chief marketing officer Craig Brommers. “American Eagle had some of the most talked about marketing campaigns in 2025,” he said, including a provocative Sydney Sweeney campaign and a collection with Travis Kelce. “In order to keep that momentum, we looked at the cultural landscape and where we could participate next and it was just such a natural progression as we start 2026 to get into the country music genre space.”
American Eagle is the leading jean brand among Gen Z, which encompasses people born between 1997 and 2012; Langley and Zimmerman, both 26, fall squarely in the demo.
American Eagle’s research also showed that country is the most listened to music genre among its customers in that age range, which played into the decision to pivot to country. “We really are listening to what Gen Z is excited about and trying to be on the pulse of what’s happening in culture,” Brommers says. “Ella, obviously, is having her moment and then Bailey has so much energy. He just lights up a room. It was really about us embracing this moment.”
Only a few weeks in, American Eagle Jeans Country campaign is already yielding success from the Langley association, with Brommers saying the kick boot and flare jeans she wears in the campaign are “flying off the shelves.”
Zimmerman, whose campaign launches Wednesday (Feb. 25) shared his love for the brand two years ago when he hopped on stage in peach American Eagle underwear. “I’ve always loved their boxers. They’ve got all the crazy designs — pickles, reindeer, whatever — and I just thought that was the coolest thing. There’s just a lot of history there for me,” he tells Billboard.
His relationship with the brand, which launched in 1977 as American Eagle Outfitters, goes back nearly 20 years. “I’ve been wearing American Eagle for as long as I can remember — six, seven, eight years old –whenever I could finally fit into it. Growing up, my dad was around, but I was a mama’s boy for sure. We didn’t have much, so back-to-school shopping was a big deal for us. Going to the mall felt like a vacation. We’d go to American Eagle because it was a brand we could count on. It fit my style, it fit our budget, and we knew we’d walk out with stuff I was excited to wear.”
Displays featuring Langley and Zimmerman will be in the windows of more than 900 American Eagles stores around North America. They are also taking over American Eagles website and social media, and Langley is featured on a 3D billboard in New York’s Times Square. When asked if there will be more artists joining the campaign, Brommers says, “we do have some tricks up our sleeve as we get closer to Stagecoach,” but declined to mention specifics.
While the campaign with Stagecoach is multi-year, the deals with Langley and Zimmerman are shorter term and are being used to launch the Stagecoach partnership. Brommers declined to put a price tag on the campaign, but added, “We have budgets that will allow us to align with almost anything out there. We are knowingly choosing country because of the cultural defining moment that it’s having.”
While Brommers says he knows the “narrative” is that country fans may be more conservative than other audiences, he disavows that, and adds, “We’re a 50-state audience. It’s important that we are as aspirational as possible to everyone. [Country music] is a national phenomenon and we’re not a niche brand. We have to do things that are inclusive. Ella Langley had the No. 1 song [with ‘Choosin’ Texas’] on the Billboard Hot 100, topping Olivia Dean, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Harry Styles. This is not niche.”
Wrangler has been aligned with country music and cowboy culture for decades thanks to artists like George Strait and Garth Brooks (and even younger artists like Lainey Wilson who has her own Wrangler collection), but Bommer says the decision to move into country “didn’t start from a competitive perspective,” but from what “the customer cares about… We have to think on a very broad scale. Country is at that moment. Anything that has a Western-influenced esthetic in the American Eagle assortment over the last year or so is selling.”
Zimmerman likes the organic feel of the association. “American Eagle and country both feel real,” he says. “They’re about showing up as you are and being confident in that. Country music is rooted in storytelling and everyday life, and American Eagle is the same. And if you’re country, you love denim. American Eagle is all about denim.”
The Stagecoach X American Eagle collection will debut online and in select stores on March 25 and will include jeans, tees, fleece and multiple other options. The brand will have a large physical presence at the Indio, California festival that Bommer promised “is going to have people dropping their jaws. You’re really going to feel denim in the desert like never before.”
As for his collaboration with American Eagle for his Stagecoach gear, Zimmerman already has some solid ideas: “I want to do patches because I think patches are the move right now,” he says. “I’m loving patches. They’re sick.”
That works for Brommers, who adds, “This is really about denim domination.”
