Elastic Belts
By Julie Anderson An 80s girl’s silhouette was one of extremes: wide shoulders and full sleeves, baggy or skin-tight pants, and, often, a sharply defined, high waist. Elastic belts were an awesome accessory because they always fit snugly, while letting us breathe. What better way is there to rein in a blousy big shirt or slouchy shaker sweater over leggings? And when we wanted to tuck our shirts in, we needed belts that would sit up...
Luscious Leather Looks of the 80s
By Julie Anderson We LOVED leather in the 1980’s. Oh, yeah. We loved it skin-tight, ruffled, and pleated. We loved it zippered, studded, fringed, and candy-colored, for jackets, pants, skirts, and dresses. Leather ROCKED! As a Hair Band Rock Star outfit, leather biker jackets were a no-brainer. We changed up the colors and fit in the eighties, but the basic biker tough guy look, with wide lapels, snaps, and zippers, remained intact....
Puffed Sleeves
By Julie Anderson QUESTION: What do Sugar Smacks, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Jiffy Pop, and the sleeves of 1980s ladies’ garments all have in common? They were all really, REALLY, puffed. I actually remember feeling dismay when sleeves stopped being puffed. They felt uncomfortably restrictive, weirdly fitted. Just WRONG. But styles change, sure enough, and once we were in the 90s, puffed sleeves (along with their soul sister, big...
Popped Collars: Poppin’ Out All Over
By Julie Anderson It’s 1983. You want to look preppy or rebellious or young. You want to look modern. You want to show the world that you’re trendy. What’s the easiest way to do this? Pop your collar, baby! Though I was wildly unaware of it at the time (although I certainly knew the word “preppy” in the eighties) there was a book that got the whole upturned-collar-on-the-polo-shirt ball rolling. It was Lisa Birnbach’s satirical The...
Fierce Fashion and Mad Max
By Julie Anderson In Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek TV shows and movies and George Lucas’s Star Wars films, we saw one version of futuristic style. They offered us future fashions that were sleek, clean, bold, and colorful. Picture Captain Kirk’s gold and black V-neck and Princess Leia’s pristine white gown. Even Han Solo, that scoundrel, had shiny black boots and fresh-looking attire. No holes, patches, or frays on that dashing young...
