The Big, Brash, Bold Fashion of the 1980s

Most images from the Tumblr site Periodicult 1980-1989

A few years back I wrote a post that poked fun at '80s fashion titled Dear Eighties, You Look Ridiculous. Now that I'm a bit older (and hopefully wiser) I must admit I have a deeper appreciation these days for '80s fashion; in fact, I'm downright nostalgic for it and have even purchased a few vintage pieces from the decade recently on Etsy. 

No one including myself is in a rush for shoulder pads, giant hair bows, and leg warmers to come back. But there is something fascinating about the explosion of color that overtook the decade by the middle of it. The saturation of neon hues and jewel tones everywhere we looked was probably a leading reason why fashion did a 180 and the dingy and dirty grunge look of the early '90s became popular. 

Well, I'd gladly take the big, brash, and bold fashion of the decade of decadence over the 1990s any day. I can probably chalk it up to getting older. The '80s were my coming of age period and we haven't quite had that explosion of color and patterns since. Nothing was immune from it; not even watches, sneakers, and cameras as you're about to see. Behold this totally awesome collection of '80s fashion gleaned from a Tumblr site I discovered called Periodicult 1980-1989 (along with a few images I saved a while ago to my Pinterest account.) 

I'd love to find a sweater that looks like this today.

Like I said, everything was colorized—including pantyhose. 

Too much of anything is not always good. Somehow clashing colors worked during this decade, but it would definitely turn a lot of curious heads today. 

Notebooks and other school accessories got the graphic '80s treatment as well. 

These coats appear to be faux fur, which is nice to see considering real fur was still popular at this time. 

Yep, brightly colored neckties.

Ah yes, I love and miss pastel colored clothing such as this as well. 

I love and miss jumpsuits and it has become tougher to find a simple knit jumpsuit such as this one above.

 

I'd be curious to know how they achieved this photo so flawlessly with the same model in the pre-Photoshop period. 

I still wear watches. I only owned one Swatch watch and still have it, but a few friends in junior high practically collected them. 

You can never have too much color!

Off the shoulder tops and sweaters always seem like they'd be uncomfortable (and cold!) And you either need to wear a strapless or bra or go without one. Nonetheless, that peek of shoulder was all the rage in the '80s. 

I never had a Le Chic camera but looking at the color selections, I kinda wish I did. 

OK, these are pastels...but who wouldn't want a pink vacuum cleaner or teal boombox? 

And that's just a small sampling of how color crazy we were back then. Gosh, I kind of miss it.