Made In West Virginia

 We we wanted to put together a design for all the beautiful Mountain Mamas out there, and finally got it done with a bit of helpful inspiration. This is a preview of the completed shirt, which will be coming soon! With this design, we wanted to express what we feel is the epitome of what a "Mountain Mama" can be, a natural, carefree, talented, no-nonsense, lovely woman – as at home on a front porch or a mountain top as she is in evening wear and heels. A versatile, strong, West Virginia Beauty. I had this ideal in my mind for quite a long time, but wasn't sure how to represent it graphically. That was before I saw this picture...




This photo hit me like shot when I first saw it somewhere in the depths of Tumblr. From what I can find out, it's from a 1967 issue of National Geographic that has a big feature about West Virginia in it. There was a copy of it on-line that has since disappeared. I DO know that the girl in the picture is a native West Virginian who was just getting into playing the fiddle, and mused about its time-honored tradition in our state. If I can ever track down the article, I'll add more details to her story. 

Seeing this image, it instantly hit me that this is it! This is the personification of what I had in my mind as a pure WV girl. We've illustrated it for our Mountain Mama design, with some modifications. We decided not to include the little shirtless fella there (sorry bro), even though being an actual Mama is another aspect of the ideal, he just looked out of place in the design. 

The shirt will be a white and yellow print on a green women's v-neck. The words "West Virginia Mountain Mama" will accompany the illustration. We're super stoked to get this out to the public, and we'll be debuting it at this year's Cheat River Festival

Written by Brian Pickens — April 17, 2013

Comments

Teresa:

Will you be making anymore of the blue and gold Mountain Mama shirts? I wanted to get this for my daughter for Xmas.

September 27 2021 at 01:09 PM

Carolyn Tolley:

I am the girl in this photo which was taken at a festival near Pipestem in the summer of 1975. It was then published in National Geographic in June of ’76…this blog appears to have been written in 2013 but my brother just saw it. Not sure if this will go through, but let me know!

September 27 2021 at 01:09 PM

Barbara Lustic:

You’ve probably already gotten a message on this but the girl is Carolyn Tolley . She is a childhood friend and she is on Facebook. She has posted this shirt that her brother came across. Wild!

September 27 2021 at 01:09 PM

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Welcome

Welcome to Made In West Virginia! We're an apparel company making specialty designs celebrating our homeland, West Virginia! We mean to represent WV in our own terms, a non-traditional, from-the-mountains-up celebration of our fierce pride and independent spirit, devoid of the tired stereotypes so often associated with our state.

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