A 1980s Childhood Read online

  Power dressing wasn’t such a big thing for men, except for uncool yuppies, although many men still had some padding in their shoulders. Instead, an alternative fashion emerged that was way cooler since it was inspired by the American TV series Miami Vice. Leading man Don Johnson teamed expensive Armani jackets with casual t-shirts and a few days’ beard growth to create a look that told the world you had plenty of money but were still cool with it. It didn’t take long before men everywhere were wearing pastel-coloured t-shirts under their expensive designer jackets (or in most cases, their cheap imitation designer jackets).

  Of course, in the eighties, you didn’t just wear your (fake) designer jacket the way it was intended; you had to roll the sleeves up if you wanted to be truly cool. Any ideas why? Well, I have a theory about how this particular trend started and, after doing a bit of Googling, I didn’t come up with any better ideas so I’m taking this opportunity to formally announce ‘Johnson’s Theory of Rolled-Up Jacket Sleeves’. We’ve already established that the 1980s was a time when people liked to show off how much money they had, so an expensive designer jacket was the ideal choice of clothing to let everyone know you had plenty of dosh. But then all the people with no money started wearing cheap, fake designer jackets which meant that nobody could tell that your jacket was the real deal. Real designer jackets have actual working buttons on the sleeves that let you unbutton them and roll them up, whereas cheap, fake jackets just have stitched-on buttons that don’t actually do anything. If you don’t believe me, go and check your suit jacket now and there’s a very strong chance it will have fake buttons on the sleeves, unless it cost you more than £500 (and if it did cost you more than £500 and you have fake buttons, you’ll know you’ve been fleeced). So how do you show the world you have a real designer jacket? You simply unbutton the cuffs and roll up the sleeves of course! Now everyone knows you’ve got loads of money once more.

  I can’t discuss eighties fashion without mentioning the New Romantic movement, which led to the famous, over-the-top make-up and clothing demonstrated by people like Adam Ant and Boy George. New Romanticism really had its roots in the 1970s punk fashion movement, of which Vivienne Westwood was perhaps the most notable proponent; but instead of taking its cues from the grim council estates and the miserable struggles against social deprivation, the New Romantics celebrated glamour and partying and all things theatrical. Basically, the New Romantics were the punks that just liked the dressing-up bit and weren’t so keen on all the anarchy.

  The bold and streaky make-up was a clear throwback to punk, as were some of the outlandish frilled costumes worn by Adam and his Ants, but things had moved on and become altogether more glamorous. The pirate look designed by Vivienne Westwood for Adam and the Ants is probably the most iconic of the New Romantic outfits, with full-sleeved, frilled buccaneer shirts made from expensive fabrics, Victorian-era Hussar jackets with gold braiding and high-waisted, baggy trousers tapering at the ankle, finished off with a white stripe painted across the bridge of the nose.

  I remember my brother being given a make-up set one Christmas and my mum helping him paint a white stripe across his face like Adam Ant so he could dance around the living room with his plastic guitar singing along to Stand and Deliver. As far as I remember, he didn’t ever go out with the make-up on. In fact, you didn’t see many people dressed in full pirate/dandy highwayman outfits out doing the shopping, but in the music scene and nightclubs there was no shortage of flamboyant costumes inspired by the likes of David Bowie, Duran Duran, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club.

  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 na
me, 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.

  Three

  MUSIC

  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.

  Yazz and the Plastic Population

  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.

  My mum loved this song and bought the vinyl record so that she could dance around the living room to it, making a refreshing change from her usual Julio Iglesias records. I remember once, on a family day out, we stopped off for lunch at a quaint rural pub in the heart of the Dorset countryside. The pub seemed to be frequented solely by farmers and ruddy-faced old men who eyed us suspiciously as we took our seats. While we waited for our food to be served, my brothers and I decided to liven up the deathly dull atmosphere of the pub by using our pocket money to play The Only Way is Up on the jukebox. The silence of the little pub was shattered by the opening horn blast of the song, much to the amusement of me and my brothers. In fact, we found it so amusing that we decided to sacrifice more of our pocket money to play it again and again, much to the disgruntlement of the muttering locals.

  Musical Youth

  There’s a common misconception that Musical Youth’s number one hit in 1982, Pass the Dutchie, is a song about cannabis, when in fact the song is about extreme poverty; the ‘dutchie’ in the lyrics refers to a type of pot used for cooking. It’s an easy mistake to make though because the song Pass the Dutchie is actually a cover version of a song released just one year earlier called Pass the Koutchie by the Mighty Diamonds, which was indeed a song all about cannabis. But in 1982 I was only 5 years old and had no idea what dutchies, koutchies or cannabis were anyway and so I would innocently copy what I heard, imitating the musicians by adopting a kind of fake Jamaican a
ccent as I sang:

  I say: Pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side,

  Pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side,

  It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance,

  It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance …

  Musical Youth followed up their hit single with Youth of Today, which reached number thirteen in the UK Singles Chart, and just a few months later their song Never Gonna Give You Up climbed to number six in the charts. But things went downhill from there and despite having some minor successes with their later songs, the band split up and went their separate ways in 1985.

  Duran Duran

  Nicknamed ‘the prettiest boys in rock’, Duran Duran were one of the most successful and iconic bands of the 1980s and, according to many women at the time, one of the most beautiful bands as well. The line-up of five sharply dressed, fashionably coiffed young men changed throughout the eighties, but at the time of their first album in 1981 the band comprised front man Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes on the keyboard, John Taylor on the bass, Andy Taylor on the guitar and Roger Taylor on the drums. The three Taylors, incidentally, were completely unrelated.

  Their first major hit single was Girls on Film whose accompanying music video was deliberately provocative, featuring topless women mud wrestling; its intention was to become a sensation that would get people talking about the band. The video was heavily censored and edited in most cases but was shown in its entirety in some of the newer nightclubs that had video screens. The band’s highly polished image and daringly provocative music videos made them ideal material for the new music video channel MTV, which helped them gain enormous publicity and turned them into a worldwide success. Throughout the eighties they churned out one hit after another, achieving twelve top-ten hits in the UK in the eighties alone.