Story: Rural clothing

A group relax on the porch at poet James K. Baxter’s commune at Jerusalem (Hiruhārama), up the Whanganui River, in 1971. They were part of a counter-culture escaping the conventions of a suburban existence. In the 1970s many alternative lifestylers bought cheap land in places such as the Coromandel Peninsula and Golden Bay. They often wore different clothing from local farmers and their families and this made them highly visible.