Naff today...

[matei]

... retro chic tomorrow?

I notice with some bemusement that the clothing that I considered tacky (even as a child) in the '80s has defied good taste and made a comback. "Parachute" pants, "Members Only"-type jackets, Flashback-esque legwarmers, day-glo colours. Even the hairstyles from that era - like like "feathered" bi-levels - are slowly creeping back into the scene !

80s culture is on the rebound as well. There always seem to be re-runs of such "gems" as the A-Team or Dynasty on the telly, and breakdancing is certainly bigger than it was during its heyday.

Walking down the street or watching TV makes me feel like I'm in a timewarp.

So... seeing that the '60s were suddenly cool again in the '80s, the '70s in the '90s - do ye think that this current offering of tacky style will be considered "retro chic" in... the 2020s?

As the public's taste is fickle, I have no doubt that some souls looked down their noses at the '30s and '40s fashion that I like.

This type of retro revival does indeed seem to follow a cyclical pattern. Perhaps we should plan ahead of the curve and start stowing the modern equivalent of the Stetson Stratoliner or Bogey-esque Borsalino for eventual resale at an inflated price on the eBay (or its equivalent) in the 2020s?

 

[CWetherby]

I distinctly remember, as a child in the late 70's, having "50's Day" at school (I must have been 10 or 11). The kids all raided their parents' closets for poodle skirts, etc. I was frustrated by the fact that my mother was so much younger than my friends' moms, and had NO poodle skirt, in fact never had one. She was a teenager in the mid-to late- 60's. Anyway, that was also the time that the show "Happy Days" was popular, followed by "Laverne and Shirley" and it seemed that the 50's were the biggest thing around.

So it seems to be a 20-year cycle--and now it's the 80's that are back--egads! I saw a recent movie with my kids that had only 80's tunes. A kids movie with music for the parents. Face it, I tell my friends, we ARE the target market now!

 

[Feraud]

I have noticed it too. There is a particular group of young folks who are living' it up 80's style in New York.
My wife works with a woman who buys at auction the ugliest 80's style clothes you can imagine. She even wears this stuff to work! :eusa_doh:

Taste & style is subjective and all that but there are good and bad aspects to every decade. Why go for the bad? Leg warmers and day-glo colors?!?

 

[herringbonekid]

the 80s look you describe is very much a deliberately 'cool' trashy aesthetic. i don't think anyone here at the FL wants to deliberately look cheap and trashy. it goes against our very nature.

 

[Feraud]

My favorite look ( am joking here..) is the guy who primps his hair to make it look disheveled! lol
Rolling out of bed is apparently not good. It takes a "little something extra" to achieve "The Look".

 

[Slate Shannon]

Yesterday afternoon, I was killing time in a mall, so I ducked into a record store (sorry, I mean a CD store). On the in-store stereo, the employees were playing a CD of modern bands doing covers of '60s songs, like stuff from The Who and others. Anyway, during a cover of "Different Drum", the old song by The Stone Poneys, Linda Ronstadt's old band, the female employee commented to the male employee, "Isn't that a pretty song?". So, maybe the '60s will be making a comeback along with the '80s. I've even seen a commercial on tv for Old Navy Clothing that has a '60s vibe.

 

[herringbonekid]

My favorite look ( am joking here..) is the guy who primps his hair to make it look disheveled! lol
Rolling out of bed is apparently not good. It takes a "little something extra" to achieve "The Look".

if we could go back to the 40s and tell them that in the future people will spend hours making their hair look messed-up and buy jeans with artificially made holes and oil stains on them, they'd look at us like we were out of our tiny minds.

 

[Feraud]

and how would those WWII paratroopes react when we tell them we will be making pants out of that parachute material?

 

[CWetherby]

Oh, and Matei,

What exactly does "naff" mean?

 

[Salv]

Oh, and Matei,

What exactly does "naff" mean?

I won't quote the whole article as there are a couple of uses of the F-word but according to the wikipedia

Naff is also sometimes used (particularly in England) as a word to describe something which is seen to be particularly "cheesy" or "tacky". An example of a sentence in which it might be used is, "Did you see that Doctor Who repeat on the TV last night? I've never seen such naff sets!"

 

[jamespowers]

80s, I won't carp about too much but 60s!? Forget it. Get the backhope out and bury that mess.

Regards,

J

 

[Senator Jack]

Hate to dissent - okay I love to dissent - but 60s style was great up to the hippie movement, which, unfortunately, is what most people think of when they think 60s. The Michael Caine mod look is brilliant (nods to GateXC) as is the Rat Pack style of the early 60s. Still can't understand how fellow Fedorans don't understand or appreciate those styles.

Anyway, the 80s stunk like onions the first time around, and we don't need them around to be stinking us up again. What a horrible period to be around. The films stunk, the music stunk, the clothes stunk, the world stunk. Did I mention how much it stunk? Spandex as far as the eye can see. Rat-tail hair cuts! An actor as president! (Nods to Derek Flint - and, okay, better than a baboon as president) I'm getting sick just thinking about that washout coming of age period. Cheers!

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[jamespowers]

Hate to dissent - okay I love to dissent - but 60s style was great up to the hippie movement, which, unfortunately, is what most people think of when they think 60s. The Michael Caine mod look is brilliant (nods to GateXC) as is the Rat Pack style of the early 60s. Still can't understand how fellow Fedorans don't understand or appreciate those styles.

Anyway, the 80s stunk like onions the first time around, and we don't need them around to be stinking us up again. What a horrible period to be around. The films stunk, the music stunk, the clothes stunk, the world stunk. Did I mention how much it stunk? Spandex as far as the eye can see. Rat-tail hair cuts! An actor as president! (Nods to Derek Flint - and, okay, better than a baboon as president) I'm getting sick just thinking about that washout coming of age period. Cheers!

Regards,

Senator Jack

You are entitled to your opinion even if you are wrong. lol

Regards,

J

 

[Dis]

That explains why I'm seeing those giant plastic framed glasses at optical boutiques. You know the ones with the crooked temples that connected in the bottom corners of the frame and the lenses so large that your eyebrows were inside the frame. They were usually some ghastly shade of pink too. Yeecch!

Next thing you know the mullet will be back.

I do recall a few fashions in the 80s that weren't bad. The shirtdress made a brief comeback, though they were in genrally ghastly prints.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

In the 1950's, when I was a young thing, the 30's style came in, helped, I believe, by the popular TV series The Untouchables. In the late 60's to early 70's, the 40's styles came in, and, later in the 70's, the 50's came roaring back.

The 60's style have been back in a little, but there were two 60's -- the early and late, as Jack pointed out. The styles most of us loathe today came in style after 1965 and remained until the mid-70's.

The thing about the 30's and 40's and even the 50's, they stayed in style pretty much, helped by movies, and our love of cool retro.

karol

 

[Doh!]

I'm afraid to look: is there a "Leisure Suit Lounge" out there in cyberspace where people extol the virtues of all things polyester?

 

[jamespowers]

"We Didn't Start The Fire" by jamespowers

Lyndon Johnson, Barbara Streisand, Red Cuba, Tiny Tim
Fritz the Cat, Walter Cronkite, Bob Uker, ACLU

Timothy Leary, Ted Kennedy, Corvair, eight tracks,
Vietnam, Jane Fonda

Bob Dylan, Dropping Acid, Narrow lapels, Neru Jackets
Mod Squad, "The Queen and I", and tye dye.

Marijuana, LSD, Jamestown, San Francisco’s got a new queen
Hippies, Bell Bottoms, Leisure suits, common sense goodbye

CHORUS
We didn't start the degeneration
It just started burning like a conflagration
The hippies and the sixties just ruined the nation
We didn't start the degeneration
No we didn't like it
But they told us to strike it

lol

 

[nightandthecity]

I'm afraid to look: is there a "Leisure Suit Lounge" out there in cyberspace where people extol the virtues of all things polyester?

almost certainly....

Not long ago I was in a pub near Leeds University when a guy dressed like a 1960s college nerd came in giving out flyers for THE EASY CLUB. It turned out to be a gathering of sad souls obsessed with EASY LISTENING so-called music from the 60s and 70s. Alf Pervert and his Marijuana Brass and such like junk.

You gotta remember - any music that has been recorded, any style of clothing that exists on film, remains in a way contemporary.

Also, if you are over 40, then 20 years ago is yesterday. Been there, done that. If you are 20, then 20 years ago is your whole lifetime and things from 20 or 30 years ago are ancient and fascinating, and often deeply nostalgic.

Jack, you are right, the 80s was rubbish. It's been pretty much downhill all the way since then.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

James,

Tiny Tim? I know who he is (in fact my wife knew him) but i want to know how he helped the degeneration.

bk

 

[Quigley Brown]

Well I liked the 80s (early to mid). I was in college and that's when I met women. There was good Brit music to dance to. It was a time for me to experiment with my wardrobe. I really didn't get into the vintage until the late 80s. So don't trash the 80s too much.