Where did all the eccentrics go?

yogitree

I have silver hair down my back, wear leggings or jeans with sparkly Doc Martens and a denim jacket and Russian style fur hat. I’m 67. Does this make me a bit eccentric ?

No, I'd say you have your own definite style and don't care what other people are doing or thinking. I only wish I could be the same! I think individuality is sometimes confused with eccentricity. Take Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood, I wouldn't call either of them eccentric, but probably a lot of people would because of their unique style. Eccentricity to me is much more than the clothes someone wears.

Did you miss last nights Mary Beard programme. One of the people interviewed was Martin Creed wearing a square bowler hat, a half white half black jacket. A sight to behold.

They should have been turned away!

Lucca

Going to the shops in pyjamas is not eccentric. It’s just lazy.

I was about to say the same.

My daughter drove to the school wearing her pyjamas, then the car broke down at a busy junction.

That was meant to be a smile, not a sad.

I suppose I would be seen as eccentric by some people at times, but I dont set out to be anything. the main things for me are to be warm enough and wearing clean clothes. So I had been living in the middle east and came back in what was meant to be summer, rather cold and very wet . I felt frozen so was walking about in trousers and tops and coat and gloves and sox . my feet and hands felt so cold I could not get warm and |I was surrounded by people in summer dresses and shorts! Then again I was a professional singer, so sometimes would have to get shopping late at night on my way back from a performance. If it was in opera I would have changed into slacks and t shirt but of course often had stage makeup. At other times I just went into the shops after singing at a concert or in a church so I would be swanning around looking at fruit and veg and looking in the bargain box wearing either my electric blue silk shirtwaister with a black velvet long skirt and heels, or another time I would be wearing a full lenght batiek dress with Geruda printed on it, very elegant hair style all up with curls etc whilst looking at the reduced prices . so I think I didnt sort of match up. when people get to know me and what I do it is ok but in the beginning can get some odd looks , especially the stage make up I think! Of course if you remember the poem "when I am old I will wear purple" well that is the stage I have reached now.

Perhaps I am eccentric. Although I am housebound and very
rarely see anyone apart from my daily help I dress in clean skirt, matching top and cardigan, wear makeup, nail varnish every day.

Greyduster

^Going to the shops in pyjamas^. Why on earth would you? Do they stay in said pyjamas all day? Do they change into clean pyjamas when they go to bed, or do they sleep in the……no, let’s not go there!

I was at a petrol station recently and a woman who looked to be in her 60s came into the shop for cigarettes, wearing pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers at around 3.30 in the afternoon. Her hair was dirty and unbrushed and the pyjamas etc looked like they had been worn for some considerable time since they had last been laundered. Trying not to judge, because she might be ill, but it's hard not to!!

Yuk.

Come to Brighton, you'll never be disappointed when it comes to eccentric dressing!

I think they are all in Ottawa at present

Occasionally see a couple of goths in our small market town. They make me smile and remember when one of our DSs was a goth but that was in Leeds, where the trend started in the 1970s. Now he's very conventional and would probably be horrified if his son came home looking like that.

I used to know a proper upper class eccentric when I lived in Cornwall. I can't remember her title now - she was Lady somebody - but she would come striding into a room wearing a mac and wellies and shake hands saying "Hello, I'm Jonet the spelling mistake!". Her father had registered her birth and her should have been Janet! She was lovely and interested in everything.

yogitree

I have silver hair down my back, wear leggings or jeans with sparkly Doc Martens and a denim jacket and Russian style fur hat. I’m 67. Does this make me a bit eccentric ?

I think it makes you FABULOUS yogitree.

I don't think being eccentric is the same as having your own style but I guess the boundaries are blurred.

The reason I mentioned class was that in my experience, I have met some totally dotty people who live like they do not care what anyone thinks of them and it tends to come with a background of privilege.

As in, if they lived on a council estate and behaved like that they would be locked up or arrested.

I know of one family, in a council estate, who turfed their living room to let their rabbits graze but they were evicted.

It’s those men who dress as toddlers in jogging bottoms with their petits paquets ( as my French friend would say) poking rather too obviously out that disconcert me.

Nana8 There is a man in Perth, Australia who rides a penny-farthing bike along the path by the river, every morning. He's dressed normally, so I don't know if that is classed as eccentric.

You can't have seen the red hat ladies. Gangs of them dressed in purple coats/dresses and red hats. Some look most bizarre

I can't think of anything worse than gangs of self acclaimed eccentrics taking to the streets.

Eccentricity is a way of thinking as well, my OH and I have it. We do get some strange looks sometimes when we're out and about!

Granny1810

You can't have seen the red hat ladies. Gangs of them dressed in purple coats/dresses and red hats. Some look most bizarre

Thankfully, no.

Boring here we used to have the mods with their Davy Crockett tails and parkas , the teddy boys with their drainpipes suade shoes and string ties the punks with lots of safety pins, the mohicans, the darkly dressed goths
all I see now is one lady (probably my age) who dresses in ‘60 s clothes usually a skirt with dozens of stiff petticoats under and a man with mental health problems who dresses in absolutely everything he can get his hands on (almost including the kitchen sink)
I too miss the eccentric dressers such fun

We are probably all eccentric in some way except if course Mr Rees-Mogg.