Consider the fashionistas. Those effortlessly sartorially gifted people
who waft about in unique, glamorously styled outfits, leaving a trail of awe,
wonder and dropped jaws in their wake.
Well, here at the Out Of Favour (OOF) shop we are lucky to have two such
marvellous creatures in our midst.
Separately, they are a truly eye-watering sight to behold; together,
they are practically traffic-stopping. Literally. I have literally seen traffic
screech to a halt to let these two sashay across the road (truth be told it was
either that or run them over: fashion diva school clearly doesn’t cover the
Green Cross Code).
Theirs is a sea of colour; a truly eye-catching conglomeration of fabric
styles, patterns, textures and layers.
Such is their impact upon our little market town, they rarely venture
out unaccompanied by their ‘minder’.
Well….. their careworker.
Rocking a look I like to describe as Glam Rock does New Romantic does
Pound Shop does Worzel Gummidge, they resemble nothing less than a circa 1974
Brian Eno, and a rock and roll weary Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap. (Oh yes,
they’re men. Didn’t I mention they’re men? They’re men).
These are The Spinal Needs Twins. And they cause a stir wherever they go
(although, to be fair, that’s often because they need a very long, very hot
bath).
 |
| Photo: Brian Eno, 1974. wikimedia commons. |
 |
| Photo: Nigel Tufnel. celebrityrockstarguitars.com |
I last saw Budget Brian Eno when he sauntered into the OOF shop a few weeks
ago, dressed in a silver teddy-bear fur onesie (grubby; partially on), a 6ft
pink chiffon scarf comprising more pulls than material, and a grunge-look,
peroxide blonde woman’s wig, worn jauntily on the wonk. He then proceeded to
leaf through the rails whilst having a very loud conversation with someone
outside by shouting repeatedly through the shop doorway.
I say conversation; nobody was standing there and nobody shouted back.
My only other customer was a conservative looking Russian princess type,
who stared in barely suppressed terror, whilst clearly assessing her exit
options and throwing me regular panicked glances. I happily took these glances
to mean: “Kudos to the grubby silver teddy bear: he wears that jumpsuit way
better than I ever could.” But in all honesty I think she was one accidental
bladder-squeeze away from pissing herself.
She needn’t have worried; Budget Brian Eno suddenly stopped yelling to
his invisible mate and scooted out the shop. The last I saw of him was the
almost magical sight of his silver-teddy-bear-and-blonde-wig-combo wafting back
past the shop on a very large, very old-fashioned bicycle, billowing metres of tatty
pink chiffon dramatically behind him and leaving a trail of startled and
confused faces.
Marvellous.
And then, the other day, Nearly Nigel Tufnel breezed into the shop.
The outfit du jour was a purple fringed blouse with non-coordinating
badges, a sort of sarong wrap skirt made, as far as I could see, from the
tailcoat of a Prince Charming fancy dress outfit, complete with braiding and frilly
edges - worn inside out, and a battered black leather jacket.
The crowning glory, though, was a short, ratted, bobbed wig in pillar
box red, liberally augmented with streams of wool and ribbon in various shades
of yellow, orange and red, which reached down to his chest.
Subtle it was not.
He made a bee line for the most expensive stuff in the shop (the style
of which is basically: ‘unimaginative noughties housewife does, ‘safe hippy,’
and thinks she’s cool’), and said:
“Is this something Toyah would wear?”*
“Toyah?”
“Yes. Toyah. Would she wear something like this?”
Now, not wanting to needlessly fleece Nearly Nigel of £80 he could
clearly ill afford to lose, but still sensing a possible sale, I tried to wheel
him towards the cheaper stuff in the shop (which was obviously no closer to
what Toyah would wear than a flowery smock is to a nice pair of bondage strides,
but, well, needs must), but he kept returning to the extravagant stuff. Then
his carer appeared and we had a brief but illuminating conversation:
“Don’t show him anything. He hasn’t got any money”
“I get it. I’m not very flush this month either.”
“No, he hasn’t got any money.”
“Oh, I see….are you in charge of the money then?”
“No, I mean he hasn’t got any money.”
“Yes, well…we were looking at the cheaper end of things, but…..”
“No, I mean he really has no money. He’s spent his weekly allowance. He’s
got about £4.25 in his pocket.”
“Oh, right, I see……. (Crap; that’s
that sale buggered then), perhaps charity shops would be your best bet (and most definitely more your style…which is
a good thing, not a bad thing).”
Clearly feeling we had got off the salient point a bit, Nearly Nigel
Tufnel interjected and brought us straight back, ‘on topic.’
“Will I be able to find something like Toyah there? I want to look like
Toyah.”
I was impressed with his tenacity and fashion focus, if not his economic
skills, and assured him he would very likely find something in a charity shop
to make him look like Toyah. Probably not for £4.25, but I didn’t mention that.
We then had a brief conversation about how we both very much liked Toyah
Willcox, which basically went:
“Do you like Toyah, then?”
“Yes I like Toyah. Do you like Toyah?”
“Yes, I like Toyah.”
“I like Toyah too.”
And off they went.
Easily the best customers I had all day.
*If you don’t know who Toyah Willcox is: 1) You’re clearly younger than
me, and I’m envious. 2) Look her up. And I’m still envious.
 |
| Picture: chris limb, flickr.com |
No comments:
Post a Comment