A thread for those who want boho chic but end up looking like pigeon lady in Home Alone.

[spottybaghottyhag]

I'm very aware everyone on Mumsnet is beautiful, stylish and model like. This thread is for the outliers

I love a certain look online, but unfortunately boho chic on a model translates on the real me as homeless pigeon feeder lady in Home Alone. I've tried Aladdin trouser things (can't remember the name, I'm that far off the mark!), cashmere wraps (my teen DC said I looked like an old sofa) and a colourful, chunky knit that made me look like a wannabe circus performer. I'm not aiming to look fashionable or stylish, but something a bit more put together rather than eco warrior jumble sale shopper would be nice.

Can anyone else relate?

One thing I have learnt over the years is that I need clothes that have some structure or they just swamp me. So I love wide jumpers and tops but I pair them with tighter trousers or I just look like a blob.

My best ever buy was a very cheap dress from next that has 3/4 sleeves and a shirred waist. It also has little puffs at the top of the sleeves and a v neck. Sounds hideous but when I wear it I get compliments every time. Next no longer sell it but I an going to take it to a seamstress to have it replicated

I used to be able to pull off boho chic when I was young, but it does become harder as you get older. You reach a certain point when quirky and cute becomes a bit old people's home, so you have to tone it down. It's a bit like the Suzi Quattro's nan thing. Cool becomes sad.

Since being menopausal, I've gone for more "understated arty" as a style than boho chic, because these days, floral prints make me feel like Miriam Margolyes' taller sister. Old age is cruel, but I'm not quite ready for Damart catalogue, so I'll try to hold onto the alternative look for a while longer.

Yes, this is totally true! I am tallish and slimish with long, curly hair - so it should work for me but full-on Boho is far too feminine a style for me. I can do Boho lite - the odd item of Boho toned down with other clothes.

Great thread, and very funny!

I wore a very long tiered dress with oversized puff sleeves in a small ditsy floral print and some bugger shouted out a car window “Lost your sheep?” at me

Either I need to borrow your dress or you need to borrow my dog. The other week, some random bloke in a van pulled up alongside us to tell me he'd thought I was walking a sheep along the verge 🙄

I love the look when graceful, willowy women wear big chunky boots with something like a floaty dress or mini skirt. I'd love to pull it off, but instead of looking boho or romantic, I just appear ... capable....

Gosh this is giving me flashbacks to year 10, my friend had bought me a chiffon scarf for Christmas and I decided to use it to accessorize my hair so used it as a 'ribbon' and tied it around my hair bobble in a bow (yes, even I'm thinking wth!) and had forgotten about it until a year 12 girl shouted "oi you, who do you think you are, Dame Edna?'

I wore a very long tiered dress with oversized puff sleeves in a small ditsy floral print and some bugger shouted out a car window “Lost your sheep?” at me 😂

Pigeon lady needs to check her privilege, she doesn't know how lucky she is losing visibility at 70. I have visibility, but for all of the wrong reasons 😭

Same here, I’m 6ft, and even though I’ve just lost 5 stone, dainty I am not. Think russian shotputter.

I get all my clothes in charity shops, love an eclectic look. I recently bought a gorgeous sage green corduroy swishy long skirt to wear with boots. I was going for ‘graceful lady of the manor’.

In reality, I looked like a bog witch.

Ohhh this thread is wonderful!
I keep laughing at posts and Mr C is annoyed because l won't tell him what l'm laughing at. It'll just give him ammunition.

Ha. Love this and would like to join, please! I'm old, apple shaped, fat with big boobs and tummy. Cannot do elegant (also have mad and frizzy curly hair) so tend towards boho/occasionally attempting a bit more colour. Never feel I get it right. Doesn't help that all my friends are thin, many are also v stylish, and all have much more of a budget - mine is strictly Vinted and new-from-Tesco is a once a year treat. Lost cause here too, I suspect...

I'm glad to know it's not just me! I always end up looking as if I'm in fancy dress, while everyone else looks cool in the same clothes.

Oh please bring back the laughing emoji 😆😆

🙌 Oh, this is exactly me too! Flustered bag lady seems to be my default style.
I tried copying an outfit I saw on Instagram, cool looking knitwear layers, a cropped vintage jacket with boho silver bangles.... except walked into the pub and had a massive hot flush, and suddenly found the wool insanely itchy and I was red faced, sweaty and scratching, hair stuck to my clammy face and then managed to get a few strands my hair caught in the clasp of my bangle so couldn't get my jacket off.

This thread is brilliant, I am really missing the laugh reaction now though!

Signing up for lifetime membership. Also of the brick shithouse proportions - any ill-fated attempt to pull off anything layered and boho, ends up more like a one of those lace doily loo roll covers.

Not quite so far gone though, that I fail to see that buying this would have people lining up wondering when the Punch and Judy was starting: www.gudrunsjoden.com/en-gb/clothes/shirts-blouses/akira-organic-cotton-blouse-natural-l

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I thought that!
I'd look like a big top!

I'm possibly in a similar position. I have had to cut my hair due to the state of it and get mistaken for a man periodically. I find winter far harder clothes wise too as light summer clothes are just easier to style and wear. Get a coat and hat on me and I look like a mash up of Vera (detective) and compo from last of the summer wine.

I was a proper hippy when young, and unfortunately “hippy” is still the applicable word now I'm old and fat.
I've gone from milkmaid to matron and those lovely floaty dresses just don't look right any more.. so I'm doing layers and barrel leg trousers and boots, with long chunky cardigans in winter.
High waisted summer dresses look best on me now, as I can disguise the girth a bit and I have numerous very light cotton duster coats for wafting.

I have found my people.

This Edith Pritchett cartoon sums up jow I generally feel whenever I shop for clothes online ("distracted by the ethereal beaty of the model, I accidentally buy something ridiculous")

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2022/aug/13/the-perils-of-online-shopping-edith-pritchett-cartoon

I have a lovely 77 year old client that does boho very well but she is an artist so its practically in her blood. She has a stunning rainbow poncho that she wears in the Spring to go out with her friend of a similar age. She wore it last year to an outdoor festival and remarked to me that so many people were congratulating her on being out and about and was it so strange to see elderly women out on their own?

They thought it was a Gay Pride symbol and were congratulating her on being 'out' 😊

Oh that’s genius @Anxietyspiral, lol. It’s getting older that is causing my angst on the clothing front. For years I channelled a slightly toned down goth type look with loads of ‘slimming’ (ha!) black. You get to the age though where you start to resemble Morticia Addams - I think your skin tone changes a bit. So I am re-embracing the boho phase I went through in my youth and spending more than I should in Free People. My DP thinks he’s hilarious with the Bet Lynch comments literally Every. Single. Time I wear my animal print jacket. I need to make an effort with my hair too. If I ditch the straighteners and try for finger-dried beachy waves, I get called Bodhi as I resemble Patrick Swayze in Point Break…

Oh god, “capable”. I think that’s my downfall with so much of this stuff, “sensible” has been my primary descriptor since the age of 12! i just cannot give off a carefree air…

I find summer is fine, I mostly live in dresses from Global Mandala - they cinch in at the waist, and give me a nice shape - with chunky sandals. They’re pretty cheap, and amazingly I have been stopped and complemented on them in public.

But in winter I just can’t break out from scout leader chic! I try to wear doc martens with long skirts and the skirts just get caught up in the boots. Tights make skirts and dresses ride up, do hippies really have to wear underskirts and hem weights?!

Agree with a PP - I love the look but the look does NOT love me. I am resigned to wearing dull clothes without ruffles, fringing, floatiness or mad swirling colours. Sad times.

For some practical inspiration, this old thread may be useful… If Monty Don was a woman, what would he wear?

Lots of floaty wafty suggestions that steer carefully between ‘Sybill Trelawny’s madder older sister’ and ‘I breed bulldogs and live with my companion Marjorie’ vibes

My shape to a T. Legs as white as milk bottles and as stubby.
Lots of thick glossy hair in all the wrong places (kindly told me by my threading lady!)
I end up looking like Jennifer Saunders’ character on the recent Amandaland most days.
No idea how to remedy tbh.
Following this thread.
Thank you OP.
Off to feed my hens now.