Love this. My 80s fashion biz mostly involved discreet safety pins round the back of my trouser bottoms to make them 'pegs' - the baggy then tight at the ankle style favoured by New Romantics et al. But then at some point around the age of 14 I decided that tucking my jeans into my tube socks into my Rucanors (80s Converse equivalent) made me look the very spitting image of Born in the USA era Bruce. I only did that for an afternoon, as my Mum's snorts of laughter helped me rethink.
Your pants look sounds incredibly cool - what is more badass than safety pins, even discreet ones! I've just googled Rucanors high tops, they look excellent. I bet you looked EXTREMELY Bruce - it is the curse of the truly fashionable to be laughed at by their mums!!
I would like to include the information that my step mother dressed me at the time! And it was in Holland in the very early 90s. I also had a terrible fringe that the hairdresser backcombed within an inch of its life. It looked like a fluffy skipper's pompom.
Hattie is right - adorable photo. So in the 80s I was in a convent boarding school in deepest Co. Tyrone NI (aka bandit country). Uniform was bottle green so when Mum spied a pair of dark green denim flares, with Kung Fu swords stitched on both legs at the ankles, she thought she was doing me a favour 😳. I STILL get teased.
This is the era that Tor went to live in the US for (how many years, Tor?) and used to come and visit us in the UK sporting all the cool US trends. I remember one time, Tor had come to visit and my school was putting on a barn dance in the park, and Tor wore a red “skort”, AKA skirt with shorts sewn in. Tor always exuded all the cool from America back then! Meanwhile in the UK, when we dressed up, it was all about hair gel and hair spray, fishnet tights, puffball skirts, and off the shoulder numbers. LOVE the photo and memories, Tor! ❤️
I never had a full shell suit, but did have black shell bottoms, which I would pair with a long sleeve multicolour paisley polo shirt with a black collar. Tesco hair gel, spiky hair. Nice.
I remember desperately wanting cycling shorts, but remember the look on my mum and dads faces.... barely stifled laughter... there were no shorts tight enough to grip my stick legs. I just liked the fluoro stripes, and y'know, liked cycling.
Definite adolescent-cusp memory of wanting to be in with the cool kids with Joe Bloggs(-a-like) jeans.
Black baggy jeans, but panel of colour (red, green) denim on back side of thigh, arse to knee. I was FRESH.
Thought my Fido Dido tshirt was cool too (alas this was north east London not malibu haha)
This is all conjuring up amazing images Luke. Multicolour paisley polo shirt!! Dude the freshness sounds out of control!!! And the image of cycling shorts hanging off stick legs 😂😂😂 But the panel of colour on your jeans sounds very avant garde, colour blocking ahead of your time!
I had to look up Fido Dido, and of course I remember him!! SO cool. I had a hypercolour t-shirt too at some point. My, we were rad!
Love this! And your socks HAD to match the non-color clashing outfit. And sometimes, we would wear MORE THAN ONE pair of socks and scrunch them down and *layer* them for a nice two-level (color) effect. Yikes!
YES!!!! WE DID THAT TOO - I found a photo yesterday in my "research" of me in a blue, yellow and red outfit, everything matching, and THREE pairs of socks scrunched down and layered!!! Where did you grow up?
Wow! An outfit in primary colors, how chic!!! :) I grew up in the Hudson Valley of NY state. Apparently, these fab trends were sweeping the world, nothing could stop them!
Sorry, my pre-adolescent years was 20 years before yours. The biggest “fashion” idea then was that mocha brown and lime green were bff’s. 🤢
I do remember SPs, however, in the 80’s when I was a wannabe fashionista. Done up in a 40’s style fitted skirt-suit...with shoulder pads. Oh we were the latest!
Of course casual was wearing my mom’s old 50/60s plastic earrings, copying my dad’s pipecleaner jeans (50s), my uncle’s undone work boots with wool socks unrolled over the top.
Hmmm maybe it's my mood but mocha brown and lime green aren't sounding too foul to me right now 😂
Your 80s outfit sounds amazing to me, and the casual look too - love the socks unrolled over boots. You're so right, retro is always coming back for us. Despite the predictions we'd all be wearing neon lights and hover shoes, not much actually seems to change fashion-wise. I guess there's only so much you can do about covering four limbs and a torso without getting too impractical!!
I was an eighties forties SP gal: Ingrid B, Lauren B and all (whose influences still resonate today in my on and off -off at the moment thank you very much- smoking.) ransacking the charity shops. I even had a ‘toweling’ swimsuit -pads on the boobs, not the shoulders- I thought I looked like Marilyn, probably looked more like my grandma’s shapeless curtains.
Gosh they were glam (and little me at 14 would have given my mum dad bros to have their vibe)
Pads on the boobs!!! Imagine if Courtney's compliment had been grabbing one's boobs and saying her line then!! I remember those bathing suits, and I BET you looked like Marilyn!!
I can picture the linen-type suits that Ingrid and Lauren et al wore - SO glam. Have you seen Bette Davis in Now, Voyager? Now there's a wardrobe I could get involved in!!
SO GOOD Tor! West Dorset in the 80s was a fashion desert but my cool uncle bought me back from the USA a reversible pink on one side lime green on the other cotton tracksuit which I LOVED though I remember nervously walking through a field with a bull in it and wishing I'd worn it on the green side. Also I remember my mum REMOVING the shoulder pads from a very cool blue 80s dress with coloured triangles all over it, what with it being too much for the rural scene. She still looked achingly hip.
Love this. My 80s fashion biz mostly involved discreet safety pins round the back of my trouser bottoms to make them 'pegs' - the baggy then tight at the ankle style favoured by New Romantics et al. But then at some point around the age of 14 I decided that tucking my jeans into my tube socks into my Rucanors (80s Converse equivalent) made me look the very spitting image of Born in the USA era Bruce. I only did that for an afternoon, as my Mum's snorts of laughter helped me rethink.
Your pants look sounds incredibly cool - what is more badass than safety pins, even discreet ones! I've just googled Rucanors high tops, they look excellent. I bet you looked EXTREMELY Bruce - it is the curse of the truly fashionable to be laughed at by their mums!!
Paisley hammer pants 🤦♀️
AHHHAHAHA! That's such a weird combo of pattern and pants!! Love it.
I would like to include the information that my step mother dressed me at the time! And it was in Holland in the very early 90s. I also had a terrible fringe that the hairdresser backcombed within an inch of its life. It looked like a fluffy skipper's pompom.
😂 I blame my mother for all my hair woes! And that fringe image is vivid!
Actually that's a typo.. it didn't look like a hairy sailor. It was meant to be slipper 😏
Hattie is right - adorable photo. So in the 80s I was in a convent boarding school in deepest Co. Tyrone NI (aka bandit country). Uniform was bottle green so when Mum spied a pair of dark green denim flares, with Kung Fu swords stitched on both legs at the ankles, she thought she was doing me a favour 😳. I STILL get teased.
Those sound AMAZING!! Kung Fu sword flares - who could have made such a thing?!?! I agree with Els - pics please!
Do you have photographic evidence!? My mum is responsible for some of my worst fashion moments too!!
HAHAHAH yes she was!!!
I'll try to dig out! Could take a while...
This is the era that Tor went to live in the US for (how many years, Tor?) and used to come and visit us in the UK sporting all the cool US trends. I remember one time, Tor had come to visit and my school was putting on a barn dance in the park, and Tor wore a red “skort”, AKA skirt with shorts sewn in. Tor always exuded all the cool from America back then! Meanwhile in the UK, when we dressed up, it was all about hair gel and hair spray, fishnet tights, puffball skirts, and off the shoulder numbers. LOVE the photo and memories, Tor! ❤️
I never had a full shell suit, but did have black shell bottoms, which I would pair with a long sleeve multicolour paisley polo shirt with a black collar. Tesco hair gel, spiky hair. Nice.
I remember desperately wanting cycling shorts, but remember the look on my mum and dads faces.... barely stifled laughter... there were no shorts tight enough to grip my stick legs. I just liked the fluoro stripes, and y'know, liked cycling.
Definite adolescent-cusp memory of wanting to be in with the cool kids with Joe Bloggs(-a-like) jeans.
Black baggy jeans, but panel of colour (red, green) denim on back side of thigh, arse to knee. I was FRESH.
Thought my Fido Dido tshirt was cool too (alas this was north east London not malibu haha)
This is all conjuring up amazing images Luke. Multicolour paisley polo shirt!! Dude the freshness sounds out of control!!! And the image of cycling shorts hanging off stick legs 😂😂😂 But the panel of colour on your jeans sounds very avant garde, colour blocking ahead of your time!
I had to look up Fido Dido, and of course I remember him!! SO cool. I had a hypercolour t-shirt too at some point. My, we were rad!
WOW Hypercolour! I'd forgotten about those! I AM SWEATING HERE HERE AND HERE haha
Yes. Going way back I remember when Davy Crockett coon skin caps were popular.
Oh my GOD I wanted a coon skin cap more than ANYTHING!!!
Love this! And your socks HAD to match the non-color clashing outfit. And sometimes, we would wear MORE THAN ONE pair of socks and scrunch them down and *layer* them for a nice two-level (color) effect. Yikes!
YES!!!! WE DID THAT TOO - I found a photo yesterday in my "research" of me in a blue, yellow and red outfit, everything matching, and THREE pairs of socks scrunched down and layered!!! Where did you grow up?
Wow! An outfit in primary colors, how chic!!! :) I grew up in the Hudson Valley of NY state. Apparently, these fab trends were sweeping the world, nothing could stop them!
Sorry, my pre-adolescent years was 20 years before yours. The biggest “fashion” idea then was that mocha brown and lime green were bff’s. 🤢
I do remember SPs, however, in the 80’s when I was a wannabe fashionista. Done up in a 40’s style fitted skirt-suit...with shoulder pads. Oh we were the latest!
Of course casual was wearing my mom’s old 50/60s plastic earrings, copying my dad’s pipecleaner jeans (50s), my uncle’s undone work boots with wool socks unrolled over the top.
Ah retro! Never goes out of style (for long).
Thanks for the memories!!
Hmmm maybe it's my mood but mocha brown and lime green aren't sounding too foul to me right now 😂
Your 80s outfit sounds amazing to me, and the casual look too - love the socks unrolled over boots. You're so right, retro is always coming back for us. Despite the predictions we'd all be wearing neon lights and hover shoes, not much actually seems to change fashion-wise. I guess there's only so much you can do about covering four limbs and a torso without getting too impractical!!
I’ll side with your mum on this one, Tor!
I was an eighties forties SP gal: Ingrid B, Lauren B and all (whose influences still resonate today in my on and off -off at the moment thank you very much- smoking.) ransacking the charity shops. I even had a ‘toweling’ swimsuit -pads on the boobs, not the shoulders- I thought I looked like Marilyn, probably looked more like my grandma’s shapeless curtains.
Gosh they were glam (and little me at 14 would have given my mum dad bros to have their vibe)
😍 And yes-what a cutie you were!!!!!
Pads on the boobs!!! Imagine if Courtney's compliment had been grabbing one's boobs and saying her line then!! I remember those bathing suits, and I BET you looked like Marilyn!!
I can picture the linen-type suits that Ingrid and Lauren et al wore - SO glam. Have you seen Bette Davis in Now, Voyager? Now there's a wardrobe I could get involved in!!
Thank you Clem, wasn't I ADORABLE😍 😂
Oh my GOD, how adorable you were. LOVE THIS
I mean *are*
Thanks dude, was and am, I won't deny it 🤪
Nice job. The memories, the writing, the art. Comes together wonderfully.
😁and I thought you had pads on😂
SO GOOD Tor! West Dorset in the 80s was a fashion desert but my cool uncle bought me back from the USA a reversible pink on one side lime green on the other cotton tracksuit which I LOVED though I remember nervously walking through a field with a bull in it and wishing I'd worn it on the green side. Also I remember my mum REMOVING the shoulder pads from a very cool blue 80s dress with coloured triangles all over it, what with it being too much for the rural scene. She still looked achingly hip.
Thank you Jion - that's so nice, and lovely to hear from you!