Category Archives: 80s clothes

The Leather Jacket

The leather jacket remains an iconic classic, moving from military bomber jackets in the 1950s to fashion uniform for rockers, punks, grunge kids and hip-hoppers alike. With each new trend, the leather jacket has been adapted and evolved – a longer, blazer cut in the 1970s for example, or tassled and studded in the 80s. [...]
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The Modern High-Street

Today the high-street is dominated by brands like Topshop and H&M that cater to the constantly changing trends of young people. Its easy to see the appeal of this market, especially during the current recession. A recent article in The Independent newspaper, evaluates how certain brands have fared during the first crucial months of ‘The [...]
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Generation X

Since that initial ‘identity crisis’ in the 1980s, brands consistently targeted young people, their trends and sub-cultures as a goldmine of potential profit. Some trends lent themselves to this commercialisation more than others. Hip-Hop kids, as I have said, took pride in consuming and displaying affiliation with brands. It was therefore easy for brands like [...]
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Logo-Mania

Hip-Hop’s embracing of particular brand logos from the early 80s, soon became a youth culture staple. Overt logos on clothing denoted the wearers affiliation with a particular trend in the same way Teddy Boys and Mods had reappropriated vintage clothes to signify their look. In Britain, the Football Casuals favoured Armani, Burberry and Ralph Lauren [...]
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Hip-Hop

In the early 1980s, the American mass-market suffered a huge “identity crisis” (Klein, 2000). ‘Household’ brands found that the customer loyalty they had built up since the 50s, suddenly dissipated during the 1981-1982 recession. According to Klein, analysts found that the only goods to ‘hold steady’ during the recession, were “beer, soft drinks, fast food [...]
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Christian Dior

Following on from the 1980s/1940s connection I talked about in my last post, the latest Christian Dior Autumn/Winter 09 Couture show typified this mix of vintage trends exactly. John Galliano has consistently produced incredible couture collections since taking over as head of design at Dior in 1997, a move that coincided with the labels 50th anniversary. Back [...]
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The 40s

The interesting thing about our current love of everything 80s is that, back then, fashion had its own vintage trend – the 1940s. During that era, fashion was far more utilitarian. Given that war dominated half the decade and women were encouraged to make-do-and-mend, its easy to see how fashion reflected the sobriety of the time. [...]
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The Suit Jacket

In current fashion, a key feature of the 80s trend is undoubtedly the double-breasted, broad shouldered suit jacket. This remains an iconic look from the 1980s, first popularised by the 1980 Richard Gere film, ‘American Gigolo’. The costumes for this film were designed by Georgio Armani. For Gere’s character, he made sharply tailored suits with shoulders [...]
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The 80s

So first up, the trend for 80s clothes. When veteran French label Balmain unveiled their Spring/Summer 09 collection, they basically opened a gaping void in the time-space continuum and sent the Western world back to the 80s (no one seems to mind though). In fact, the trend has been taken up by other similarly influencial [...]
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