Prairie Girls Are Back In Style

September 14, 2018
   Guess who's back?

Prairie Woman With Load of Buffalo Chips

Yes, the Prairie Girl look is back in style, proving that, if you live long enough, you get to see things go out of style and come back in, at least a couple times. When I was a precocious lad (1965-75), they were called "Granny Dresses," and a certain hippie-type girl wore them with style and pride.

A Retro Hippie "Chick" in a Granny Dress

   They were called Granny Dresses because to young females in the sixties, their grandmothers wore dresses like this, and if there's one thing that drives young fashion, it's the answer to the age old question: "What will piss off my mother?"

  Proving once again the reason grandparents and grandkids get on so well is because they have a common enemy.

   Here is the latest version, as reported in The New York Times, yesterday:

Millennials are "Totally Frocking Out"

   This time around the look is more inclusive. Quoting from the article, "Politically speaking, my head space right now, I'm trying to maintain my love for this country and for some reason that makes me gravitate toward wearing a certain style of prairie dress, which is interesting because that was never, as a woman of color, something I was included in."

—Aurora James

      So, let's take a look at the real deal.

A Joseph E. Smith photo of a ranching family near Socorro, New Mexico in 1888

A mother and her children pore over

an 1880s Montgomery Ward catalog.

"Some women have embraced the straightforward prettiness of the trend, adding a wicker basket and clog sandals. . .It's a whole new breed of Pioneer Woman. Call her the Urban Prairie Girl (U.P.G.?)"
—Chloe Malle