Women Fashion Models and Designer

What were you doing in the decade of power suits and power hair, overdone makeup and jewelry, tasseled socks and silver-adorned leather boots?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you weren’t around in the decade of excess… the ’80s!
Funny thing, while I was living in that time, I was fascinated with the fact that every other decade had defining fashion styles… the ’50s had poodle skirts and bobby socks, the ’60s had hippy chic, the ’70s had sparkly disco shirts and leisure suits, and the ’80s… had nothing. At least that’s how it felt at the time!

Now looking back, I laugh at the notion I had while in the thick of things!
At the start of the decade the Flock of Seagulls flew onto the music scene, followed by the Romantics, Human League and Duran Duran, and the resulting fashion was heavy makeup (for boys as well as girls!) and big hair. The bigger the better… as gravity defying as possible!

The big hair spawned the invention of gel and mousse, and boosted hairspray sales through the roof — until we found out we were destroying the ozone layer with our aerosols, and discovered non-aerosol hairspray that helped the environment in two ways… no CFCs, and no extra waste on the pocket-sized bottles because they were refillable.

Movies like Working Girl showed us that the underdog could become a top dog, just by inserting huge shoulder pads into their suit jackets to look the part of the high-powered executive. Women wore suits with bows instead of ties, and lots of big ruffles, because it was the ’80s, when bigger was always better.

Madonna roared onto the scene with controversial hits Like a Virgin and Papa Don’t Preach… because if you couldn’t ruffle a few feathers along with your ruffled clothes, you didn’t belong in the spotlight in the ’80s.

Girl bands forged the pop scene, like The Bangles and The Go-Gos, while boy bands like Duran Duran set the new wave trends. If you were a young girl during that time, you know all the names of the Duran Duran members, and your favorite was probably John Taylor or Nick Rhodes… unless you like lead singers, then you’d go for Simon LeBon, until he married a model.

On the other side of the coin, the hard-loving guys were listening to glam rock bands like Poison, Whitesnake and Motley Crue. Looking back, the rock bands and the new wave bands appeared similar, but if you were there, you were either a waver or a rocker, and never both.

In all, there was one word that defined the decade of excess, and that word is BIG.
But like they always say, go BIG or go home.
Or you can always do both… by remembering the ’80s.