58 Fun Facts About 80s Fashion

What two-word term describes the shoulder-padded look of 1980s career women?

Power dressing: the term took hold as women entered management in large numbers, with padded shoulders and tailored suits borrowed from menswear, and the wider the shoulder, the bigger the statement.

Joan Collins and Linda Evans helped make oversized shoulder pads a craze on which prime-time soap opera?

Dynasty's costume designer Nolan Miller dressed the Carringtons in ever-bigger silhouettes across the ABC soap's nine seasons from 1981, and the trend lasted into the early 1990s.

Which French designer was nicknamed 'the King of the Shoulder Pad'?

Montana's exaggerated, almost armour-like shoulders are credited with defining the whole power-dressing era.

Norma Kamali's best-selling 1981-82 collection was made from which unlikely fabric?

Sweatshirt fleece: Kamali's 'Sweats' line cut the grey gym fabric into rah-rah miniskirts, dresses and jumpsuits, and its removable Velcro shoulder pads helped push padding into the mainstream.

Besides lace gloves and tulle skirts, Madonna's 'Like a Virgin'-era imitators wore big jewelry in what shape?

Crucifixes, often several at once, hung alongside stacks of rubber bracelets in a look styled by Maripol; it also took in lace gloves, bras worn as outerwear and the 'Boy Toy' belt buckle.

The Official Preppy Handbook, the tongue-in-cheek Ivy League style bible, came out in which year?

The Official Preppy Handbook appeared in October 1980, edited by Lisa Birnbach, and turned popped collars, boat shoes and sweaters tied around the shoulders into a national uniform.

Which TV series is credited with popularizing the T-shirt-under-Armani-jacket look for men?

Miami Vice dressed Don Johnson's Sonny Crockett in pastel T-shirts under unstructured Armani-style jackets, with sockless loafers, white linen trousers and permanent stubble coming along for the ride.

Michael Mann banned which colour family from the wardrobe of his pastel 1980s cop show?

Mann's rule was 'no earth tones': the palette came from Miami Beach's pastel Art Deco district, and labels such as Versace and Hugo Boss supplied clothes to keep the leads looking sharp.

Who designed the red-and-black jacket Michael Jackson wore in the 1983 'Thriller' video?

Landis, wife of the video's director John Landis, also designed Indiana Jones's outfit for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

For how much did Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' jacket sell at auction in 2011?

The jacket fetched $1.8 million at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills in June 2011, two years after Jackson's death in June 2009.

The first twelve Swatch models were unveiled on 1 March 1983 in which city?

Zürich hosted the launch on 1 March 1983; the cheap plastic quartz watch was Switzerland's answer to the Asian quartz imports that had gutted its watch industry in the 1970s.

The name Swatch is a contraction of what?

'Second watch': Swatch chairman Nicolas Hayek's line was that it was a low-cost, artistic watch you bought in addition to a serious one, then collected by the dozen.

How did Members Only finish its slogan 'When you put it on, …'?

'Something happens' completed the line; the jackets, with narrow epaulettes and a collar strap, reached the US at the start of the decade via Europe Craft Imports.

The 1982 Reebok Freestyle, the first athletic shoe designed for women, was built for which activity?

Aerobics: the soft garment-leather Freestyle rode the exercise-class boom and, with its high-top sister the Freestyle Hi, made Reebok a giant almost overnight.

In which year did Reebok launch the Pump, the sneaker you inflated with a button on the tongue?

The Pump arrived in late 1989 at about $170, with an inflatable bladder you pumped up via a basketball-shaped button on the tongue; Dee Brown pumped his up before winning the 1991 NBA dunk contest.

The first Air Jordan sneaker went on public sale in which year?

The Air Jordan I hit stores on 1 April 1985, a few months after Michael Jordan's rookie season with the Chicago Bulls began in October 1984.

What was the NBA's per-game fine for shoes breaking its colour policy, the basis of Nike's 'banned' Air Jordan ad?

The fine was reportedly $5,000 a game, which Nike happily paid; its ad said the league had 'thrown them out of the game', though the shoe actually banned was the Nike Air Ship.

The 1988 Air Jordan III introduced which logo?

The Jumpman silhouette debuted on the Air Jordan III; Tinker Hatfield's design also introduced elephant-print leather and is credited with keeping Jordan from leaving Nike.

Tom Cruise's Ray-Ban Wayfarers helped revive the sunglasses in which 1983 film?

Risky Business put Cruise in Wayfarers on its poster and through much of the film, part of a $50,000-a-year product-placement deal Ray-Ban had signed with Unique Product Placement the year before.

How many pairs of Wayfarers sold in 1983, the year of the Tom Cruise placement?

Sales hit 360,000 pairs in 1983, up from just 18,000 two years earlier; the frames had been designed back in 1952 by Raymond Stegeman of Bausch & Lomb.

Which husband-and-wife team designed Lady Diana Spencer's 1981 wedding dress?

David and Elizabeth Emanuel, a young London couture couple, made the ivory silk taffeta gown, which was decorated with 10,000 pearls and sequins and valued at about £9,000.

How long was the train on Diana's wedding dress?

The train ran 25 feet (7.6 metres), the longest in British royal wedding history at the time, and had to be crammed into the glass coach for the ride to St Paul's.

Guess, the jeans brand launched in 1981, was started by four brothers with what surname?

Georges, Maurice, Armand and Paul Marciano were Moroccan-born designers who built the brand on black-and-white ad campaigns.

In a controversial 1980 jeans ad, 14-year-old Brooke Shields asked what came between her and her ___?

'Nothing' came between her and her Calvins, the line that made Calvin Klein's designer jeans a sensation and drew complaints that led some stations to pull the spots.

Before they became an 80s fashion item, leg warmers were worn by whom to stop muscles cramping?

Dancers wore them in rehearsal to keep calf muscles warm and loose; the films Fame, Xanadu and Flashdance and the exercise craze then put them on everyone else.

In which year was Jane Fonda's Workout, the chart-topping leotard-and-leg-warmer video, released?

Jane Fonda's Workout came out in April 1982 and went on to sell 17 million copies, the first non-theatrical home video to top the charts.

Jelly shoes, the translucent sandals of the mid-80s, are made from which material?

PVC plastic: the soft, translucent vinyl could be moulded in any colour and often glittered; a 1983 Bloomingdale's order is credited with starting the US craze.

Which Italian jeans company patented the modern acid-wash process in February 1986?

Rifle patented the process in February 1986; American Garment Finishers of El Paso, Texas, industrialized it in North America four months later and offered it to Levi Strauss.

Acid-washed denim is tumbled with pumice stones and what until it turns almost white?

Chlorine bleach soaked into pumice stones does the work: the look was found by accident when jeans and bleach-soaked stones were tumbled in a machine without water, stripping the indigo in patches.

Whose 1986 song 'My Adidas' led to the first endorsement deal between a musical act and an athletic company?

Run-DMC's track from Raising Hell celebrated laceless shell-toes; an Adidas executive watched a Madison Square Garden crowd hold their sneakers aloft, and the million-dollar deal followed.

Christian Lacroix, who opened his couture house in 1987, made his name with which balloon-shaped skirt?

Le pouf, a short, bubble-shaped skirt, became Lacroix's signature; the Arles-born designer's house was backed by Bernard Arnault's Financière Agache.

Which fashion house did Karl Lagerfeld take over in 1983, revamping its ready-to-wear?

He had been at Fendi since 1965 and Chloé since 1966, and kept the Chanel job until his death in 2019.

Donna Karan's 1985 debut collection of 'seven easy pieces' was built around which garment?

The bodysuit was the foundation: every other piece layered over it, and the idea of the mix-and-match capsule wardrobe was born with Karan's debut show.

Benetton hired which photographer as creative director in 1982, leading to its "United Colors" campaigns?

Oliviero Toscani shot the brand's first multiracial 'All the Colors of the World' campaign in 1984, and 'United Colors of Benetton' became the company's name and slogan by the end of the decade.

What was the name of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's first catwalk collection, shown in 1981?

Pirate, shown in March 1981, was their first catwalk collection; its swashbuckling look fed the New Romantic movement and was worn by Adam Ant and Bow Wow Wow.

Westwood's mid-80s 'mini-crini' took its inspiration from which ballet?

Petrushka, the Stravinsky ballet, gave Westwood the idea after she saw its dolls in stiff little skirts; the mini-crini shrank the Victorian hooped crinoline to thigh length for her mid-80s Mini-Crini collection.

Tunisian-born Azzedine Alaïa's skin-tight 1980s designs earned him what nickname from the press?

The King of Cling: the press coined it for his body-hugging knits and leather; Grace Jones wore several of his creations in the Bond film A View to a Kill.

Rommy Revson patented the scrunchie in 1987 and named it 'Scunci' after what?

Her toy poodle, Scunci, lent the name; the design itself was inspired by the soft elastic waistband on a pair of sweatpants.

Which slogan T-shirt did Katharine Hamnett wear to meet Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street in 1984?

'58% DON'T WANT PERSHING' cited a poll on US nuclear missiles in Europe; Hamnett wore it under her coat to a Downing Street reception for the fashion industry in March 1984 and unveiled it for the cameras.

Which slogan was on George Michael's white Katharine Hamnett T-shirt in the "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" video?

Hamnett launched her oversized block-letter shirts in 1983 and they were quickly adopted by pop bands.

The 'Frankie Say Relax' T-shirts of 1984 were devised by which ZTT Records co-founder?

Paul Morley, the former NME writer who co-founded ZTT with Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair, designed the shirts as a riff on Hamnett's block capitals; they sold by the hundred thousand during 1984.

Parachute pants, the breakdancer's trouser of the early 80s, were made of which fabric?

Nylon: the shiny ripstop fabric, originally woven for parachutes, gave the baggy, zip-covered trousers their name and let breakdancers spin without friction burns.

Sean Penn's Jeff Spicoli made Vans checkerboard slip-ons famous in which 1982 film?

Fast Times at Ridgemont High put Spicoli in the slip-ons; Vans had adopted the checkerboard after noticing skateboarders drawing the pattern on the white rubber sidewalls of their shoes.

Which model stripped to his boxer shorts in Levi's famous 1985 'Launderette' commercial?

Nick Kamen stripped to boxers to 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'; the Bartle Bogle Hegarty ad revived 501 sales in Britain and set off a boom in boxer shorts.

Berets from which British hat brand, founded in 1938, became a staple on LL Cool J and Slick Rick?

Kangol started out making berets in Cumbria in 1938 and supplied the British Army in the Second World War; by the mid-80s its hats were all over hip-hop, from LL Cool J to Slick Rick.

On which Harlem thoroughfare did Dapper Dan open his bootleg-logo boutique in 1982?

125th Street, Harlem's main drag, housed the boutique for a decade; it was sometimes open 24 hours a day and was shut down in 1992 after legal action by Fendi.

What did Dapper Dan call his logo-covered creations?

'Knock-ups', he insisted, were too extravagant to be mere knock-offs; decades later Gucci partnered with him officially, opening a Dapper Dan atelier in Harlem in 2018.

Cross Colours, launched in 1989, printed which slogan on every garment?

'Clothing Without Prejudice' was stitched into every piece; Carl Jones and TJ Walker's brightly coloured baggy clothes soon showed up on rappers and on Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The word 'mullet' for the short-front, long-back haircut was popularized by which group's 1994 song?

Beastie Boys' 1994 track 'Mullet Head' is the Oxford English Dictionary's first citation for the word, so the 80s wore the haircut for a decade without a name for it.

According to Jennifer Beals, why did she cut the big neck hole in her Flashdance sweatshirt?

It had shrunk in the wash, Beals said, so she cut the collar to get it over her head; the accidental off-the-shoulder look ended up on the 1983 poster and in exercise classes across America.

Which American brand sold Lacoste's crocodile polo shirts under licence in the US until 1993?

The 'Izod Lacoste' shirt was the preppy uniform of the early 80s before Lacoste took back its US rights.

Nike's first Air Max TV campaign in 1987 controversially used which Beatles song?

'Revolution' played over the ad, the first time a Beatles recording was licensed for a commercial; Apple Corps sued Nike, Capitol and EMI over it, and the visible air unit was Tinker Hatfield's idea.

Which pop star's reported $20 million LA Gear deal produced the 'Unstoppable' sneaker campaign?

Michael Jackson signed with LA Gear at the end of the decade for a reported $20 million; the buckle-covered 'Unstoppable' sneakers sold poorly and the partnership collapsed into lawsuits.

Which parachute-pants maker began life in 1977 as Buckaroo International?

Bugle Boy, founded by William Mow in 1977 as Buckaroo International, took its new name at the start of the 80s and became famous for its 'Excuse me, are those Bugle Boy jeans you're wearing?' TV ads.

The designer-jeans brand Jordache takes its name from a contraction of what?

Joe, Ralph and Avi Nakash launched the horse-head-logo label in 1978 and bet a quarter of annual sales on a risqué 1979 TV ad.

What happened to the Jordache blimp on its maiden flight in October 1980?

It crashed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the site of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, during its first flight; the company's TV ads with a topless rider fared far better.

Which 1989 Casio digital watch became the best-selling watch in the world?

The F-91W, designed by Ryūsuke Moriai, paired a resin case with a seven-year battery life, an alarm and a 1/100-second stopwatch, all for under $20.

The neon-and-geometric 'OP' logo of the 1980s belonged to a brand rooted in which sport?

Surfing: Ocean Pacific began as a surfboard label, and Jim Jenks launched the apparel line in 1972, selling it through national store chains rather than surf shops.