WINSTED — Drivers will need to prepare to spend much more at the pump as gas prices continue to rise.According to www.connecticutgasprices.com, a website that keeps track of prices around the state, the average price for a gallon of regular gas has gone up by 23 cents in a little over a month, from $3.74 a gallon on Jan. 30 to $3.97 a gallon on Tuesday, March 6.Locally, most gas stations around Winsted offered regular gas at $3.91 a gallon on March 6.Jim MacPherson, spokesman for Connecticut Automobile Association of America (AAA), said drivers should brace themselves for gas prices to go even higher.“I think people should be thinking in terms of dealing with record gasoline prices by the time we get to the summer,” MacPherson said. “If people budget for it, they will be in good shape. But if they don’t budget for it, then they will be caught short.”MacPherson said driver demand for gasoline has nothing to do with the rising prices.“Demand for gasoline is actually lagging nationally by about six percent from the same time last year,” MacPherson said.Instead, MacPherson believes that gasoline prices are on the rise due to a combination of instability in oil-producing countries and people who speculate in oil prices.“The Strait of Hormuz is a passageway in Iran, and 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows right through that strait,” MacPherson said. “Due to the tension surrounding world issues, Iran has threatened to shut that strait down. Libya has never really recovered in terms of output, and there is still concern from the international community about the unrest in Syria. While Syria is not an oil-producing country, it is still part of the Middle East and that riles the oil market.”As for oil speculators, MacPherson said they are intentionally driving the price of a barrel of crude oil up in order to resell it at a higher profit.“There has been talk of making laws that a person who wants to speculate in oil would have to be physically in a position to take possession of it,” MacPherson said. “That would slow down prices from rising.”He could not predict how much more prices will rise.“No one can predict gasoline prices,” MacPherson said. “As of right now, all bets are off.”
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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