So if it’s not obvious yet by my theme this week, Heaven, which I wrote for MLR’s Mixed Tape anthology takes place in the 80’s. The only real rule for the submission call was to write a romantic story around an 80’s song–otherwise it could conceivably be about anything or take place anywhere. But I was an 80’s girl and the story of two best friends growing up in the 80’s just took flight before I could even write one word down.
So I thought it would be fun this week to tease the book with some 80’s flashback posts (well flashbacks for those of us old enough to remember the 80’s) . Today I thought we’d discuss Fashion.
Now, every decade has it’s own (good or bad) style trends that we may look back on with fond memories or we may burn every piece of clothing and every picture from that era. The 80’s though were definitely distinctive. The picture below is sampling of some style trends from back in the day.
Look familiar to anyone? I would love to say that picture was 25 years old, but I actually took that picture while shopping at a Kohl’s two weeks ago. Yep, some of the 80’s trends are creeping back in. The striped jacket I could live with, but the patterned pants? Really? Did someone really think that was a good idea again? I think I did actually own a couple pairs of patterned jeans back in high school (when I was a skinny little thing) but I am too old (and a few pounds heavier) to do them again.
Other fashions of the times I remember sporting:
I had a huge fluorescent pink sweatshirt, leg warmers, long baggy blouses that I belted. I remember fingerless lace gloves and a wristful of bracelets ala Madonna, and a black fedora ala John Taylor from Duran Duran, *sighs dreamily* 🙂
I know there was more but I think I’ve blocked them from memory. So now that I’ve come clean, what about the rest of you? What “totally awesome” duds did you wear in the 80’s?
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from Heaven:
We were both excited to finally be starting high school. And underneath, secretly a little scared but we didn’t talk about that. We were cool, we were awesome, we were now in high school.
The first morning I was still in my bedroom getting my stuff together, when Joey rapped on my window, then shoved the sill up and jumped on in. I think my mouth dropped open for like five minutes. He was still wearing his signature two-different colored shoes, but the rest of him was completely new to me. He was wearing a gray suit jacket that was at least a size too big for him, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbow, a red and white wide-striped t-shirt underneath and his jeans were rolled up to just above his ankle, showing off his one red shoe and one yellow shoe. Casey had taken Joey thrift-store shopping last weekend and when he got back Joey was bouncing off the walls with all the “cool” things he said he’d found and for dirt-cheap. I just hadn’t seen any of the things he’d bought yet. I was personally a little weirded out by the thought of wearing some stranger’s rejects, no matter how many times you washed them.
The real topper to the whole ensemble though, was the hair. He’d been letting it grow this summer, and it was just long enough in the front to hang down into his eyes, with the back creeping down his neck, almost to the top of his shoulders. It was kind of well, messy was the best word to describe it. But the big thing was, he had bleached his bright red hair platinum blond with a couple of red streaks in the front.
“How awesome do I look?” He did a little twirl, ending with his hands on his hips.
“Wha—what did you do to your hair?”
He just shrugged. “The red was too boring.”
I pointed. “But you added red to your hair…that was already red.”
“Not the same at all. This is Passion Red.” He tugged on the red strands of hair.
“And…blond?”
“Isn’t it bitchin’? Same shade as Nick Rhodes hair!”
C. J. Anthony 