Costumes and clothing in the western

Where can we find symbolic meaning in costumes? To which extend is clothing part of the character, and where does costume get the status of an object? How does costume create paradoxes in a character and where does it underline special features of a figure? What happens when we find cross-gender clothing in the Western – women in men's clothes or men in women's dresses? How do we distinguish between heroes and villains just from their looks?
To answer these questions, I will, after an introduction in both the Western as a genre and the use of costumes in film, analyze the use of costume in four examples.