When a male character is from a rural setting, a common visual shorthand to establish this is to put the character in denim overalls. For bonus points, put him in a checked shirt (often made of gingham, a medium-weight checked cotton). He normally wears a hat; straw in a historical setting, a baseball cap if he's from a modern farm.
Female characters from rural settings, depending on the time period, may wear either denim or gingham. Tomboys and/or modern characters will often wear denim jeans or overalls; Ms. Fanservice favors denim "Daisy Dukes" (ultra-short shorts). More "feminine" characters, or those from times that didn't approve of women in pants, will wear gingham dresses. Either version is the normal attire of the Farmer's Daughter.
It's usually safe to assume a character dressed in denim or gingham will share some of the common rural traits. Whether they're negative or positive traits will depend on the approach the rest of the work's taking. If rural values are approved of, expect common sense and practicality from a man in denim overalls or a woman in a gingham dress. If not, characters dressed that way will tend toward strongly conservative, bordering on (or all the way to) Luddite views. On the darker side where Hillbilly Horrors lurk, this may be combined with a rugged yet simple mask to form a Sackhead Slasher.
There's a certain amount of Truth in Television here. Denim is a practical fabric for farm work, as it's washable and can take abuse. Gingham for the ladies isn't as tough a fabric, but it's still washable — and usually a woman in a gingham dress is working around the farmhouse, not plowing. It may have become popular because it's a little more fancy than a solid-colored fabric while still being very easy to make (and therefore cheap). 1800's farmers commonly wore a straw hat ... but so did most men during the summer (wearing a hat when working outdoors in the summer is sensible, and straw hats are cheap - for a farmer, it might not cost anything beyond the time needed to weave the straw he grew last year anyway into a hat). And baseball caps can be seen everywhere, city as well as country.
This trope is specifically for cases of denim/gingham attire as shorthand for "this character is from a farm". City teens wearing $300 fashion jeans need not apply.
A subtrope of Rough Overalls. Contrast with Sharp-Dressed Man or Socialite, both of whom are urban characters.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Fairy Tail, Beth Vanderwood, a member of the all-female Mermaid Heel guild who fights with giant vegetables, wears overalls.
- In Goblin Slayer, Cow Girl, a farmer who lives with her uncle, wears overalls with a blouse.
- Averted in Ojamajo Doremi, for the first two seasons, Aiko Senoo's trademark outfit are her blue overalls. However she's from Osaka. This was changed in the 4Kids dub, Mirabelle P. Haywood was given a country drawl with a backstory she was raised on a farm.
- In Sakura Quest, the characters dress up as farmers for a publicity event, and Yoshino goes with a pair of overalls, a plaid shirt and a straw hat. Yoshino also wears overalls with a sleeveless blouse as casual attire in the summer, but does so without looking like a farmer.
Arts
- American Gothic,
the extremely famous painting by Grant Wood, portrays a farmer and his daughter. The former has overalls and a pitchfork.
Comic Books
- In Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, Roswell Garst, the Iowa corn farmer that Khrushchev met on his visit to the US, is dressed like this. Photos show that the real Garst wore a suit for the meeting (and wasn't a Funny Animal pig).
- In Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories, boy genius Jack B. Quick and his farmer papa both wear overalls, and the whole family wears gingham.
Fan Works
- Applejack from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is usually humanized as wearing daisy dukes and a gingham shirt, though overalls aren't uncommon for artists who prefer practicality over fanservice. She has a huge stetson hat as well. Overalls are even more common with humanized fan-arts of her little sister, Apple Bloom.
- In My Little Pumpkin, Ash dresses up like his deceased paternal grandfather for Halloween. His grandfather was a farmer, so Ash dresses up in overalls with a plaid shirt underneath.
- In Where Talent Goes to Die, Momo Iwawsawa, the Ultimate Farm Hand, wears a button-down shirt and bib overalls. Kaori Miura, the main character, can guess that Iwasawa's a farmer with just at a glance.
Films — Animation
- Applejack's official humanized design in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls has her with a long, denim skirt and a green-and-white blouse. Some shorts show her wearing denim pants when doing actual farm work.
- In Zootopia, Judy's father, Stu Hopps, a farmer in Bunnyburrow, wears denim overalls and a gingham shirt and her mother, Bonnie Hopps, wears a gingham shirt. Gideon Grey wore overalls as child and a gingham shirt and jeans as an adult. Even Judy herself is seen selling produce in a gingham shirt and jeans during her 10-Minute Retirement scene.
Film — Live Action
- In Grim Prairie Tales, Arthur and his family dress this way as befits their status as Determined Homesteaders. Shame about the Town with a Dark Secret.
- In the flashbacks in Husk, Farmer Comstock and his sons Corey and Alex are dressed in bibbed overalls and check shirts. Looking closely, Alex is still dressed like that under the burlap sack over his head in the present day.
- Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz wears a blue and white gingham dress.
Literature
- The American Girl Kirsten books has the titular young girl own a few gingham dresses, to fit with her growing up on farm land in Minnesota after immigrating there with her family—her birthday dress and an extra blue checkprint dress. Notably, the dress that's considered her iconic outfit is not gingham—it's a blue cotton calico print.
- Ebenezar McCoy from The Dresden Files dresses like this when he's off-duty on his Missouri farm, rather than performing his duties as a Senior Council member.
- In L. M. Montgomery's Jane of Lantern Hill, Jane wears overalls when she helps with shingling; Aunt Elmira sniffs over the appropriateness for a girl.
- Several characters in Little House on the Prairie wear gingham dresses.
- In the Ladybird edition of The Town Mouse And The Country Mouse, Country Mouse is illustrated wearing overalls and gingham, while Town Mouse wears a suit and bow tie.
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Dorothy Gale spends most of her adventure wearing a blue and white gingham dress, one of the only two dresses she owns. note In the 1939 film adaptation, Dorothy's blue gingham dress is almost as iconic as the ruby slippers. In the illustrations to future Land of Oz books, she usually doesn't wear gingham, but this varies Depending on the Artist.
Live-Action TV
- The Andy Griffith Show: Briscoe Darling (played by Denver Pyle, the same actor as Uncle Jesse) also tended towards overalls & a solid shirt.
- Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard almost always wore overalls, but he preferred a solid-colored shirt. In The Movie he wears a plaid shirt with his overalls. Luke wore a checkered shirt but jeans rather than overalls (though jeans were originally called "waist-high overalls").
- Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island usually wore gingham (it was her iconic outfit).
- The House episode "Three Stories" has the title doctor delivering a lecture about three different patients whose cases start with complaining about pain in their leg. The first of them is a farmer, and as the scene plays out, he appears at first as a general "farmer" complete with straw hat and wheat in his mouth.
- Letterkenny: Squirrely Dan's choice of outerwear, although he's the only one of the Hicks to wear it. note
- Our Miss Brooks: In "Red River Valley", Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Walter try to get jobs with Deacon Jones' hillbilly dance troupe. Miss Brooks dresses in Gingham, while Mr. Boynton dresses in overalls. Mr. Conklin and Walter don't follow the trope; Conklin wears a dirty shirt and suspenders while Walter wears a ragged hat and vest.
- That's So Raven:'Country Cousins'. Trying to make peace with her relatives, Raven visits her family (half of which played by Raven herself) and takes Chelsea along with her. Most of them donning overalls when working, however Raven tries to get stylish by dressing in cow patterns while milking. When Chelsea convinces her to change her wardrobe to fit in, Raven evens up donning gingham and overalls. However as she does so at dinner time when her relatives dress more formal, they end up questioning her style.
- The Waltons: Nearly everyone in the family have worn overalls at once point. For the children and their grandpa, more than regular.
Music
- Maddie & Tae's "Girl In A Country Song" is a Take That! against popular 2010s country songs and how they treat women. One of the things they complain about is the Ms. Fanservice version of this trope:
Well, I wish I had some shoes on my two bare feet.
And it's getting kind of cold in these painted-on, cutoff jeans.
I hate the way this bikini top chafes. Do I really have to wear it all day? - Marty Robbins describes the title character as "a saint in a dress made of gingham" in the 1970 country classic "My Woman, My Woman, My Wife."
- Mentioned in The Producers song "Betrayed," where Bialystock has a My Life Flashed Before My Eyes moment:
I see my mother standing on the back porch, in a worn but clean gingham gown, and I hear her calling out to me, "Alvin! Don't forget your chores. The wood needs a-cordin and the cows need a-milkin'. Alvin, Alvin..." Wait a minute! My name's not Alvin! That's not my life. I'm not a hillbilly. I grew up in the Bronx.
Tabletop Games
- 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume Two. The dobie is a type of brownie that lives in rural areas, such as farms. It is pictured as being dressed in farmer's clothing, including overalls.
- Field spirits in Shadowrun dress like this when they take a humanoid form.
Theater
- The Broadway musical Leave It to Me! has a Dream Sequence where Goodhue returns to his native Topeka and goes home to find his wife (normally a Rich Bitch) sitting on the gate in a bonnet and a gingham dress.
Video Games
- Story of Seasons games frequently use this:
- The classic Harvest Moon protagonist Pete wears a backwards baseball cap, a kerchief around his neck, and denim overalls.
- Pete's second Distaff Counterpart, Claire from Harvest Moon: Back to Nature For Girl, wears overalls over a red gingham shirt.
- The male protagonist of Harvest Moon: Skytree Village and Harvest Moon: Light of Hope on default dresses in yellow gingham, blue overalls, and a handkerchief around his neck.
- Ann from Harvest Moon 64 is a farm girl who wears overalls. Subverted in most other games, where she's based on her Harvest Moon: Back to Nature characterization as an inn-keeper's daughter.
- The default appearance for the farmers in Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns are brown overalls (dress for the female farmer) and a red gingham shirt. Similarly, the farmer's child will wear a brown vest, and a gingham shirt (son) or gingham dress (daughter).
- Ranchers and cowgirls in the Pokémon games wear overalls and cowboy hats.
- In World of Warcraft, Farmer Yoon, a Pandaren from the city whom you help to become a real farmer in the Tillers questline in Mists of Pandaria, wears a plaid red shirt and blue overalls.
Western Animation
- Beethoven: The Animated Series: 'Down on the Farm', As the title says, the family takes a trip to visit their relatives on a farm where their bully son wears overalls. After he pulls a prank, ruining Ted's clothes, his aunt lends him his son's old overalls much to the boy's embarrassment.
- Hey Arnold!:
- The perfect and sweet farm girl Lila wears puffy sleeves with a gingham style on them on her green dress. She and her Dad move to the city from the country and eventually get used to life there. This style she wears emphasizes her prim and proper farm girl character.
- In 'The Aptitude Test', Helga got her test results mixed with Harold's. Feeling like she has no future, Helga started acting like a hick, even trading off her trademark pink dress for pink gingham under overalls. She even got herself a pink gingham bow!
- Megan dressed like this in the first of the My Little Pony TV Specials. She's a farm girl who gets picked up by a talking pegasus and sent on an adventure to save her pony friends from the evil Tirac. By My Little Pony 'n Friends she had received a Girliness Upgrade that gave her overalls with frills and a white puffy shirt.
- The Simpsons: Various farm theme episodes, from 'E-I-E-I-Doh' and 'Apocalypse Cow', have a family member donning overalls.
- What About Mimi?:
- To help Russel avoid being sent to his uncle's farm for the summer, Mimi got him to delivery newspapers. However when that didn't work out, due to a grumpy neighbor blaming them for a prank bullies were originally targetting the kids, Russel and Mimi were seen at the end of the episode on the farm. Both donned blue overalls with Mimi wearing a sun hat. Also in overalls during the episode was a little bratty girl with the bullies, but she wore them more casually.
- A semi-Sequel episode in season three, 'Down On The Farm', has Mimi and Russel once again donning identical overalls. However Mimi now wore green without the sunhat.
