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Summer in the atmosphere, the sun is on your skin, and grass is under your feet…the only thing missing from this scenario are flowers in your hair. That’s where Free Mary Anne comes in. 

With music festival season in full swing, there’s a resilient trend that some either love to indulge in, or love to hate: Floral headbands. 

While checking out the Sweetlife Music festival at the Merriweather Pavilion, we spotted the blonde duo, who would later introduce their line as Free Mary Annehustling their immaculately made festival-ready headbands for a fraction of the cost listed on their website. 

GlobalGrind caught up with the New York City-based duo to talk about their plans for the future of the line, what made them take the leap of faith into accessory design, and of course, what acts they’re looking forward to checking out this festival season. 

Check out our exclusive interview and some snaps of their designs below.

Where did the idea for Free Mary Anne develop?

We have always had our own little design projects going on – everything from embroidering handbags to studding leather jackets. We love to customize our clothes and accessories with various embellishments. For years we’ve been dreaming of turning our various crafty hobbies into a business, as we often find ourselves making things we wanted but couldn’t find in any retail stores. For a music festival last summer, Mary stitched up a giant black dahlia headdress that actually ended up being way hot to wear in the summer sun. From this disappointment, we began to reconsider the design and after several prototypes landed on the lovely, and warm weather friendly, flower headdresses you see on our website today.

What were you each doing before deciding to embark on this design journey?

Caity works in luxury marketing and I am in graduate school, so Free Mary Anne is really just two roommates dreaming up ideas on nights and weekends. We can’t quit our day jobs (or studies) just yet, though we are excited to begin this journey as small business owners and independent designers.

Who are some of your fashion influences? Celebrities you would like to see wear your stuff?

We pick up influences all over, though living in New York City our primary influence is the people who live here and the city itself. As for the city, there is a surprising lot of nature here and we are particularly inspired by the parks and botanical gardens throughout the five boroughs. We also love to cruise the many museums and just recently checked out the Punk! exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The do-it-yourself ethos of the Punk scene has definitely permeated our lives and designs since high school. Celebrities are cool and all (and certainly we wouldn’t complain if any of them wore our headdresses) however our favorite moments are when we spot our fellow festival-goers having a great time dancing with our headdresses on.

I assume festival season is high season for the floral headbands? What festivals are you ladies heading to this summer and what acts are you most excited to see?

Our floral headbands offer a subtle bit of style that is perfect for festivals. We will definitely be partying with our favorite designs this summer as we head to Governor’s Ball in New York City, Firefly in Dover, Delaware and Camp Bisco in Mariaville, New York. It’s tough to coordinate festival days when so many amazing acts are playing at the same time, but we are definitely looking forward to seeing The Knocks, Alt-J, Boys Noize, and Big Gigantic. All of the summer festivals also present a great opportunity to discover new music, which is definitely one our favorite things about the summer festival season.

Flower headbands for summer, what can we expect with the Fall/Winter collections?

Summer is definitely high time for floral headbands, though the live music scene goes year round and we plan to debut seasonal headdresses throughout the year. We also have a number of other projects in the works and plan to expand into accessories beyond headbands later this summer. Ultimately, we’d like to provide a range of products to enable our customer to customize her festival, concert, or party look with our unique Free Mary Anne aesthetic.

What is the last thing you purchased?

We’re a bit poor right now as we’re trying to start this brand, so shopping isn’t our priority at the moment. We have been busy retooling some of our old favorites though. Mary has been using iDye packets to transform her old cotton dresses into newly colored pieces, while Caity has been busy studding everything she owns. Caity’s on the lookout for rainbow heart sunglasses though, so if you find a source let her know!

If you could give a message to anyone who knew you in high school, what would it be?

Although we went to high school about as far apart as you can get in the US (New Jersey for Mary and Oregon for Caity), we’re fairly certain those we knew in high school wouldn’t be surprised to hear about our handmade business endeavor. We consider ourselves the real life long lost Romy and Michelle (a must-see movie, in our opinion). The post-it market is clearly too saturated, so now that we’re finally living together, we plan on taking the floral headdress world by storm!   

You can shop Free Mary Anne’s full collection here.