This week's issue of New York Magazine touts The New Eccentrics, those brave souls who, in the words of Wendy Goodman, " beat.. back generic palettes and safe prescriptions because they have no choice. They exhibit an innate attraction to unusual colors and objects..."

Of course there is a thin line between eccentric and tacky. The beauty of the whole Design for All aesthetic is that even Aunt Mabel in Peoria has a shot at being chic and minimal. It's all getting rather boring though, isn't it? I think I have posted here about my own urge to cover my entry way in flocked wallpaper of the most garish variety just because I simply cannot bear to see another reproduction Eames chair, or Nelson clock or anything else you might find in the Design Within Reach catalog.

These "new eccentrics" are an annointed few - those who have a knack for making the otherwise hideous seem chic when ensconced among all their other offbeat quirky belongings. Oh, and it helps if you are wealthy and can afford the very best in eccentricity. (Too nervous to choose your own eccentricity? A designer will gladly cultivate it for you.)

The modern design trend has been largely bulletproof; you can take it too far, but what it's done for the most part is made hip accessible for everyone. But how hip can it be if everyone has it? Not so hip.

So, eccentric is the next logical trend. The most recent T:Style Magazine supplement from the Times had a similiar focus. One article sang the praises of Danish Design before 1950 declaring: "Their achievements deserve to be celebrated, and not as the latest retro fad. Sophisticated yet functional, sensuous yet restrained, this is furniture you want to bring home to meet the family heirlooms."

The chair featured in the online version, and pictured in this here item, reminds me a lot of some of the colonial style furniture that graced the apartment of my youth. Brass tacks: the new chic? Probably so.