The Common Ground Fair has been inspiring me ever since I first came to it in 2001. So much about it is inspiring--I'll write more about that in another post--but the style is an added bonus for me. I love seeing people dress up in their wildest country finery!
At that very first fair I attended, I was walking behind a woman with dreadlocks down to the ground, carrying a baby in a beautiful sling. She might have been one of the first women I ever saw carrying her baby in this way, and although I wasn't a mother yet, it was so encouraging to me, because I thought, Wow, you can be a mom and still look super cool.
The last time I attended the fair, in 2009, I saw a woman wearing a red gingham shirt and a denim overalls jumper dress and boots. It sounds kind of boring and traditional, but it was actually incredibly chic and flattering, and looked somehow contemporary and fashionable even as it played on completely vernacular Maine farm wear. And I saw it once, two years ago, and I haven't forgotten it since, and I think about that woman in that outfit ALL the time. I've looked for an overalls dress just like she had; I've thought about finding a red gingham shirt even though, honestly, it would not look good on me. It was a highly influential style moment, more influential than anything I've seen in a magazine or shop during the same time.
This is what made me want to do this blog, so I could keep looking back at the style that inspires me most--things worn by real people in the real countryside--throughout the year, whenever I choose. I hope it will be inspiring for some of you as well.
(And maybe some of who have never come to the Common Ground Country Fair will come. And those of you who, like me, try never to miss it, will enjoy this funny angle on one of the best festivals on earth.)
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