Some Summer inspiration: Steam Fair & Charles Cushman

To celebrate the arrival of the long awaited Summer, the whole family and me went to the Steam Fair yesterday, had tons of fun on all sorts of steam powered rides – the best so far is probably the Lightning Skid. If you have been reading this blog for a while you may know that Fun Fairs are a big style inspiration for me, so going to Carter’s is always a treat.

Photos from LondonTown / Factory Daydreamer

I have also been looking at some photos from the Charles Cushman collection and selected my favourites to show you.

“Packing his car with camera, lenses, and film, his tripod, his notebooks and—often as not—his first wife, Jean (who was not, to judge from the expression on her face in Cushman’s occasional carside portraits, always a happy traveling companion), this extraordinary amateur photographer pursued a life on the road, and in the streets, of mid-twentieth-century America.” from Charles Cushman’s Journey through the American Landscape, 1938-1969 by Eric Sandweiss

The photos I chose to show you here are some of his “fashion” shots, but do have a look at the rest of his work as it literally is a goldmine. I was completely amazed at how modern most of his candid photographs of women look, but I also took great delight in looking through pages and pages of landscapes, urban scenes etc.

I can’t really think of a better Summer inspiration for me than a stroll at the fair and a bit of mid-century Americana, because to me, that’s what Summer should be all about: beautiful coloured lights & the smell of cotton candy in the evening , crisp whites, denim & bikinis in the daytime.

Living in London, I only get very little of this, but I can daydream, or just reminisce of summers past, with my parents & grandparents on the French Riviera.

What is your dream Summer atmosphere?

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