Fashion is not lost on the farmers

Farmers have been flaunting their garb at Fieldays this week, and if the gravel road was a catwalk, the ‘rural Kiwi bloke’ look is very much ‘in’ this season.

The crowd at Fieldays tends to ascribe to a mutual dress code – a farmers’ fashion statement.

There are 73 clothing and footwear exhibitors on-site this year, more than most shopping malls in New Zealand, and second only to dairy products and equipment at Fieldays.

Just Horse n Around was one clothing store stocking a range of attire and accessories for rural men and women.

Owner Robyn Macdonald said there was definitely a distinct style among farmers.

“When you look around you sort of see who are the farmers against the townies. It is a dress code,” she said.

“They like to look good of course.”

But she said clothes had to be practical as well as fashionable.

Mason Brooking from the East Cape agreed. He was dressed in a full-length oilskin jacket, which he had dusted off especially for Fieldays.

“They’re styley, but they’re practical,” he said.

But Huntly bull beef farmer Barry Loveridge said style had nothing to do with it.

Dressed in the classic flannelette shirt, oilskin vest, denim jeans, and leather boots he looked the part from head to toe.

But he said, “It’s a look that developed that way because it was convenient. No one dresses to look the part.”

Perhaps the most telling sign of farm-based fashion was the modernisation of the traditional gumboot by Mount Maunganui based footwear company Bogs.

Owner, Glen Sheaff, said Bogs were the future of fashion conscious farming.

“Basically it’s a fashionable, practical, comfortable gumboot. It’s just reinventing the gumboot really.”

He said while standard gumboots served a practical purpose people were after more boot for their buck.

“There are a lot of applications outside of the cowshed where they want a boot… They want something a bit different.

“We’ll chuck a few practical features in as well to keep them happy but when you look at the response we get – they love them,” he said.

This was their first season in New Zealand and most of their men’s range had already sold out.

Mr Sheaff said he was slightly surprised by how well they had been received.

“For the fashion conscious cow cockie, they love them,” he said.

One of the most popular brands of rural wear was Ridgeline and general manager Matt Bruce said they provided for the “rural guy look”.

“They want to wear a brand on their chest that they think is synonymous with the angle that we’re trying to run – the outdoor, hunting, rural guy. They wear their badges with pride too. They get pretty keen on the gear,” he said.

“For some people this is their uniform. They wear it to the pub and it’s their good going out gears… This stuff’s like their number ones.”

He said there was no difference between a rural bloke wearing Ridgeline and a city slicker wearing the latest designer fashion label.

“But is there a fashion at Fieldays?” he asked.

“I think polar fleece is the fashion of farmers these days.”