A 1980s Childhood (3 page)

A toned-down and more practical version of New Romantic fashion began to appear for the less adventurous folk, starting with small shirt collars worn unfolded for men, excessive use of eyeshadow and blusher for women, and quiff hairstyles for either sex.

While many of the eighties fashions can be classified into their own clearly defined genre, like power dressing, aerobics fashion or New Romanticism, there was a considerable overlap between each and ideas were borrowed, modified and mixed together to create entirely new styles. And while many garments can easily be traced back to their pop culture origins, some trends are harder to source or even categorise. Take, for example, the puffball skirt which became very popular in the mid-1980s, being worn by the Princess of Wales and singers Pepsi and Shirlie, among others. It has echoes of the miniskirts of the sixties, while probably being influenced by the outlandish designs of the New Romantics. Rah-rah skirts were another adaptation of the miniskirt but this time with a sports clothing twist taking inspiration from cheerleaders at sporting events.

One of the most popular items of clothing in the eighties for both men and women were stonewashed jeans or, in fact, any garment made from stonewashed or acid-washed denim. Heavy metal bands and bikers seemed particularly keen on faded denim and sometimes took to splattering bleach on their clothes to add an even more ‘distressed’ look. Of course, if you were wearing stonewashed jeans, they had to be skinny and often finished off with a pair of gleaming white high-top trainers and some neon socks, preferably in two different colours. Michael J. Fox demonstrates this look in the
Back to the Future
trilogy, although I don’t remember him having the neon socks. Come to think of it, maybe the neon socks weren’t that cool after all.

The hairstyles that accompanied the clothes are worth a mention too, since the eighties played host to some of the most extreme and ridiculous hairstyles the world has ever known. Starting with undoubtedly the worst hairstyle ever, the mullet was a mainstay of eighties fashion and was proudly sported by such celebrities as Pat Sharp, Limahl and Billy Ray Cyrus. The mullet haircut, as you know, consisted of short hair at the front and sides and long hair at the back.

Early prototype mullet haircuts started appearing as far back as the 1960s with Welsh singer Tom Jones sporting a fine example; in the 1970s David Bowie joined in with his own take on the mullet. However, the mullet did not achieve prominence and popularity until the early 1980s when ‘hair bands’ like Kajagoogoo and Duran Duran somehow made them acceptable.

A fine example of a real-life mullet haircut. This photograph makes me instinctively reach for a pair of scissors.
(Courtesy of Lifetouch/Wikimedia Commons)

I don’t know what we called them in the eighties but it certainly wasn’t ‘mullets’ and some mullet websites have given credit to the Beastie Boys for inventing the name in their 1994 song
Mullet Head
. I can imagine a few of the names I might have used personally but it’s probably best not to print those. Thankfully, the mullet haircut declined in popularity as the decade drew on and was almost completely eradicated, except in Russia where the mullet still thrives in the wild.

Throughout the eighties, the general idea was to make your hair bigger and bigger, using more and more hairspray until either a) the hair collapsed under its own weight; b) the wearer collapsed under the weight of the hair; or c) the hair spontaneously combusted due to the excessive amounts of flammable hairspray used. A variety of different styles were created to achieve the big hair look from the aforementioned mullet to the glam perms of the
Dynasty
power dressers to the downright ridiculous haircut infamously worn by Mike Score of A Flock of Seagulls. If you fancy a laugh, go and search for ‘80s big hair’ on the web and take a look at some of the pictures. You’ll be amused at first and then ashamed as you remember how you had your own hair back in the day. If you were one of the big hair bunch, then I want you to know that you are responsible for ruining the cinema experiences of numerous children in the eighties. We had to try and watch the film through the massive dome of hair of the lady in front and while this was extremely frustrating, it did add a kind of early 3D effect to
Teen Wolf
.

Deely Boppers: the world’s most pointless yet successful invention.
(Courtesy of Jim Lane/Wikimedia Commons)

As if you hadn’t made your head look ridiculous enough with all this big hair and mullet shenanigans, some bright spark decided to make everyone look stupider still by inventing the Deely Bopper. If you don’t know it by name, you will certainly know it by sight. The Deely Bopper or Deely Bobber was a plastic headband with a pair of springy bobbles on the end that looked a bit like insect antennae. They came in all shapes and colours, decorated with glitter, shaped as hearts or covered in fur, and for some reason people thought they looked great and were quite happy to be seen wearing them. Apparently, they were invented by an American (that explains it) who was inspired by the ‘Killer Bees’ costumes on
Saturday Night Live
. Being an entrepreneurial sort of fellow, he knocked up his first batch of Deely Boppers in 1981, which his wife named incidentally, and took them to a street fair in Los Angeles where they sold like hot cakes. After selling the idea to the Ace Novelty Co. in Washington, production was ramped up and within a year of the initial launch sales were estimated at 2 million. To this day, I still haven’t figured out what they are for but, judging by their popularity, it seems like everyone else has.

As a child in the 1980s, I showed little interest in fashion and dutifully wore whatever my mother gave me. I couldn’t have told you the difference between a rah-rah skirt and a puff ball, and neither would I have cared, but I do remember getting disproportionately excited on one occasion when my mum bought my brother and me a pair of espadrilles each from Wimborne Market. In my mind, espadrilles belong with the
Miami Vice
look, a kind of laidback cool contrasting the simplicity of cheap and simple shoes and t-shirt with the expense of the designer jacket. However, on reflection, I don’t remember Don Johnson ever slipping on his espadrilles before chasing after the bad guys. Not only would they have been uncomfortable when running any distance, they probably would have fallen apart pretty quickly since the soles were made of a kind of flat jute rope that clearly wasn’t designed for durability. Although I was hardly ever involved in police chases, my espadrilles didn’t last long at all, but then that was probably because they were cheap imitations bought from ‘Pete the Feet’ at Wimborne Market.

I also remember being given my very first bum bag and feeling extremely cool wearing it, despite looking like a complete fool and having nothing to put in it anyway. I probably don’t need to explain what a bum bag was but if you have somehow managed to erase the traumatic memory of the bum bag from your memory, let me remind you. The bum bag was basically an expansion of the money belt concept that lets you keep your money and keys, or maybe some spare shoulder pads, in a convenient little bag strapped around your waist. Despite its name, it was usually worn at the front for security and ease of access, and was second only in uncoolness to those little money purses you wore on a string around your neck. They were available in an astonishing range of shapes, styles and colours and I remember my sister-in-law investing in an expensive-looking black and white cow-skin bum bag that would have looked great if only it was a handbag. No one, I repeat no one, looks good wearing a bum bag.

The Americans don’t call them bum bags, they call them fanny packs. There’s nothing funny about that. Stop sniggering, you at the back.

I might not have cared much about fashion back then but I did my best to fit in with all the other kids, although I’m not sure you would believe me if you ever saw what I was wearing. One of my few concessions to fashion was the obligatory neon-coloured slap bracelets that everyone had. They were basically just a strip of convex metal covered in a plastic or material outer that looked a bit like a shoehorn when extended. You slapped it onto your arm and it would instantly wrap around your wrist making a rather unusual shoehorn/bracelet combo.

You might now be starting to form a picture of me back in the eighties. Imagine a blonde, bespectacled little boy (nicknamed ‘the Milky Bar kid’), wearing a neon-coloured Ocean Pacific t-shirt, neon shorts, pastel-coloured espadrilles, a bum bag around my waist, a slap bracelet on one wrist and a friendship bracelet on the other. Next to the bracelets was a digital 007 wristwatch that played the James Bond theme tune and a baseball cap on my head with the word ‘Bad’ on it to go with the various Michael Jackson pin badges I was wearing on my burgundy cardigan. Not a nice picture, is it?

I have looked at a few of the key fashions of the 1980s but there is simply not enough room in this book to cover all of the weird and wonderful trends that emerged in those ten years. Somehow we managed to pack more new fashions into one decade than there were in several of the previous decades combined. The pace of change in fashion accelerated so fast that there was a new fashion born with each new music video and every new film. This was a time when MTV had just hit the television screens and brought a big slice of American pop culture into our homes and it was a time when people had more money to spend on fashion than ever before.

I know I’ve mocked the fashions of the eighties, and deservedly so, but was it really any worse than the fashions of today? Given a choice between a pair of MC Hammer baggy pants and a pair of today’s skinny jeans worn to look like they’re falling down, I think I’d go for the baggy pants. And if you’re still chuckling at the thought of people wearing shell suits, shoulder pads and slap bracelets, take a moment to cast your mind back a few years and ask yourself what YOU were wearing in the eighties.

These days, I have the radio permanently tuned in to my favourite eighties radio station and would be quite happy if I never listened to anything else again. After all, there were so many hundreds, probably thousands, of amazing records made in the eighties by so many talented musicians that you could never possibly tire of hearing them all. When I listen to the music of the eighties, I’m transported back to my childhood – a time of careless innocence, of fun, laughter and excitement – and I like it there and enjoy going back to visit. Each song brings back a different memory for me, perhaps of a film I watched with my brothers or of a day out with the family when we sang along to a song on the radio together. There’s something about the music that stirs the memories and emotions and has the power to take you on a journey back in time and make you feel good all over again. And so, without further ado, I’d like you to join me on a trip down memory lane as I share with you some of the music that brings back my happy memories from the eighties.

While Yazz actually had four UK top ten hits in the eighties, the one that most people will remember her for is
The
Only Way is Up
, the incongruously perky and upbeat song about poverty, degradation and the threat of potential eviction. The song became an instant hit when it was released in 1983 and spent five weeks at number one in the UK charts, ultimately becoming the second biggest selling single of the year.