Fashions of the 80s

Tart Time Machine

By Wolfen Moondaughter
March 1, 2006

Welcome to the first fashion edition of Tart Time Machine, covering those wacky and wild styles of the '80s! Looking back on the things people used to wear, myself included, I cringe at a lot, but at the same time, I kind of ... well, miss some of those fashions. Come take a walk with me and my fellow tarts down memory lane, and maybe you'll see what I mean.

Bad Hair Day

Wolfen Moondaughter: I had long hair with bangs — sometimes feathered, sometimes cut straight — up until I was about 10. At that age, I was more concerned with playing outside than with brushing my hair, so Mom finally put her foot down and said it was coming off. So I flipped through the styling mags at the salon, and found one I liked that was even shorter than what she had expected me to get! It was the "layered" look, the stylist told me — it looked like it was feathered to my eyes, like my bangs but all over. Dad was furious when we got home; I thought it was cool until the hair spray wore off and I couldn't figure out how to style it. Then I thought I looked like an ugly boy. Years later, I saw the film Billie Jean, in which the protagonist, a girl on the run, cut her hair short as an act of defiance, after being inspired by Joan of Arc. As this film was originally released about the same time as when I'd gotten my hair cut short, I figure the trend of short hair on girls in that decade probably started with that movie.

I think the most common hairstyle in the '80s was "big hair". Whether you had a perm or you used hot rollers every day, the key ingredient was hairspray — usually ozone-eating aerosols like Rave. Then you brushed and teased and blow-dried it until it was practically standing straight up on your head. The "hair pick", that treasured leftover from the days of the Afro, was useful for this task. But even if you didn't make your entire head into a poof-ball, many girls at least used "spritz" (non-aerosol hairspray) to make their bangs looks like they'd stuck their finger in an electrical socket. I was guilty of this myself. I did have a perm now and then, but when I did, no amount of teasing could get it off of my head en-masse.

The crimping-iron was really big back then too; even Barbie had one. I never could get mine to come out anything but haphazard-looking. And there were other styling irons that put kinks and ziz-zags in your hair. Or the curlers that were heatless, bendy, foamy things that were more fun to play with as toys than what they were intended for. These things all looked great on TV, but never really seemed to work in practice (at least not in my "fine" hair, which couldn't really hold a curl). The only thing that did work for me really was the tried and true method of braiding wet hair and letting it dry that way. Remember the "hair loop" or "pony flip", a device that helped you do somewhat sophisticated ponytails? The styles were indeed pretty, but you could do the same things with just your fingers, really; you basically just make a loose ponytail, then separate the hair above the rubber-band and thread the tail through it, over the top. Or remember the "hair twirler", a device that braided/twisted hair for you? Yeah, if it didn't tangle it up first! It might have been faster than fingers, but ultimately not all that necessary. And people made money off of all these contraptions!

I remember a few boys' styles that were hip at the time — and some girls wore them too. One was the Mullet — short on top and long in the back, like MacGyver (or, in the 90s, Michael Bolton). Then there was the "rat's tail" — short all around save for wisp of long hair at the back of the neck. (This style still seems to be popular, at least among the red-necks where I'm living now). Guys also had their own versions of the girls' "big hair", brushing their hair upwards in semi-pompadours, or using spritz or mousse to make it spiky. I really had a thing for spiky hair, once-upon-a-time. Rock stars would grow their hair long and poof it out in all directions (and the elder generations called them "girls" for doing it). The "stoner"-crowd generally wore their hair long and feathered, but not teased the way their rock-star idols did.

And let's not forget the wild-childs who sported coloured hair, or partially-shaved heads, or Mohawks. I first encountered the concept of the Mohawk with Mr. T, but I think most teens and twenty-somethings who sported the looks were more-likely inspired by the punk music scene than by pro-wrestling or episodes of the A-Team. Hey, remember when Storm of the X-men had a Mohawk? I was never that wild, but I did like the notion of coloured hair, thanks to "New-Wavers" like Cyndi Lauper, Boy George, the Thomspon Twins, Adam Ant, etc. Sadly, back in those days, for those who weren't celebrities, hair-colour usually came out of a foul-smelling spray-can (and would get on everything). I'm happy the trend just kept growing instead of going away, so now we have much better — and bolder — products to colour our hair with! Meanwhile, the less wild among us in that decade would still indulge in a bit of colour now and then with clip-in streaks of coloured hair (which has never really gone away); there was even a doll dedicated to this concept, named Lady Lovely-Locks. And then there was the practice of sprinkling your head with glitter. Yeah, that wasn't such a good idea, was it? It would get everywhere and never fully vacuum off the floor. It would sprinkle into your food as you ate and get in your eyes. But fashion is pain, right?

Hair trends weren't restricted to the hair itself, of course. When I had a perm, I often kept the hair out of my face by pulling it back with those colourful kiddie animal-barrettes (usually they were bears or poodles, don't ask me why), like those I'd originally worn as a toddler. They're still around, but I remember them being all the rage at the time. Then there were those big bows that clipped in with a complicated huge metal barrette (I wore them, but they frequently got caught in my hair). The scrungee became big then — and never went away. And there's my favourite, the banana-clip! It was basically two curved combs that were connected on one end by a hinge and clipped together at the other. There were long and short ones I generally favoured the long, but they seldom stayed in my hair when it wasn't permed. And then there was the strange fad of wearing multiple headbands, the kind that you wear on top of your head to hold your hair back. One was painful enough — they would dig into my head, behind my ears. Wearing two or three was really intolerable.

Suzette Chan: I was in high school when the '80s started, and an adult by the time they ended. A person can go through a lot of hairstyles in that time of her life!

My hair preferences were bracketed styles inspired by David Sylvian's relaxed two-tone quiff at the beginning of the decade and Siouxsie Sioux's Peek-a-Boo bob (which she stole in turn stole from Louise Brooks) toward the end. In between was probably my signature 'do of the '80s, spiky hair like Hopey's in Love and Rockets. The steps to achieve it were:

1. Get a severe haircut, buzzed on the back and sides, straight at the top.
2. After washing and towel drying, work up hair with gobs of Dep (if broke) or L'Oreal Studio ultrahold something-or-other (if flush).
3. Lacquer into place with power sprays of Final Net. I think they called it Final Net because it was designed to kill all movement in your hair; bullets could bounce off it.

Sheena McNiel: Looking back, I kinda like the big hair and the Mohawks, and the colors — in the right places (like on rock stars ... and Rogue from X-Men). But two things kept me from being very aware of it at the time. 1) I was kid through the '80s and 2) I spent much of my time ice skating competatively which mean lots of hairspray but to keep the hair down not up. My hair was either in a pony tail or just down on a regular basis, or in a tight bun or French braid for ice skating. Thank GOD I never had bangs like many young girls through the '80s. There was one experience with big bad hair I do remember. I went to a birthday party for a friend of mine that was held at, you guessed it, a hair salon where we all had our hair done by the "professionals" (what other decade would have birthday parties for little girls hosted at a hair salon?). Well, they decided to take my long, naturally curly/wavy hair and ratted the whole thing — meaning they took strands and combed the wrong way up the hair till it "fluffed up" into knots. My hair was one HUGE knot, hairsprayed in place that was painful and long in taming and it looked awful. And you should have seen the "creations" the other girls went home with! My own hair accessories included lots of those cute colorful animal-barrettes, plastic headbands, scrungees (lots of them), and those rubber band things with the colorful plastic balls on the ends you would loop around the hair and slide one ball over the other to hold it in place.

I did like the funky hair that came on my Barbies and my My Little Ponies though. Some were crimped, others changed colors, some were wild and untamable (not being intended to be styled), and still others were combinations therein. As for mullets, MacGuver (Richard Dean Anderson) is the only one to every carry it off and still look like a hunk (I watched that show religiously!).

Clothes Maketh the '80s Child....

Wolfie: Underoos were big when I was a kid. I remember having a Wonder Woman set and an R2-D2 set. I think I was about seven years old when I wore the Wonder Woman set to school because it was cold in the morning, but it ended up getting way too warm in the afternoon. I asked the teacher if I could take my shirt off, explaining that I had my Wonder Woman top on under it. She said fine, so I did, and immediately harassed by the nearby boys, who started cat-calling and making "hourglass" shapes in the air, etc. At seven!!! Anyway, the teacher realised that it was "underclothing", and I was made to put the shirt back on, despite the fact that it was basically just a freakin' tank-top. I wasn't allowed to go into the bathroom and take the thing off and put my shirt back on, either (probably because the stalls in the girl's bathroom had no doors and the bathroom itself didn't have a door either, so that the teachers could keep an eye on the kindergartners). Note to parents: forget the undershirt and give the poor kid a sweater instead, so they can remove it if they get too warm.

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out what "parachute pants" were. It seemed to me the kids I knew were wearing them before I'd ever heard the name, so when I finally heard people talking about them, I expected to see pants that ballooned into parachutes! (Hey, I was like eight, what do you want?) In reality, they were simply made out of the same material as parachutes were. They also had zippers everywhere — sometimes this denoted a pocket, sometimes it allowed you to gather up the material so that they were tighter, or let it out so they were looser (not quite a parachute, but the spirit was there), and sometimes they were just zippers, and didn't open to anything. I never did quite "get" that last style, but then I never owned a pair either.

The zipper thing migrated onto jeans, too, especially at the bottom. Seemingly-useless (I mean, who would wear them un-zippered?) the leg-zippers did make it easier to wear boots under tight jeans, or pull up your socks. (Of course, it was a touch difficult to zip them over the socks, as they would get stuck in the material.) Leggings/stirrup pants were popular; they were comfortable in most respects, unless you had some killer elastic at the waist. And if you didn't have elastic that threatened to slice you in half, you spent the day constantly pulling them up because the elastic at the bottom, under your feet, were constantly pulling the whole thing down. And let's not forget the tight leather pants, which never really went away!

Blue-jeans have been a round a long time, but it was the '80s which made the idea of wearing "old"-looking jeans popular. People would buy them pre-ripped and pre-stonewashed, for a pretty penny. Those of us who couldn't afford a $70-pair of pre-treated jeans would take some bleach and a pair of scissors or razor blades and attack a brand-new pair, washing them until they looked liked we'd owned them for years — or at least we thought they did. But really, you could always tell, couldn't you? Patches were really popular too, mostly on knees or back pockets. So were patterns in the fabric, and embroidery — especially butterflies. Jean jackets were big too — but worth it. They were comfy, had lots of handy pockets, and were fun to decorate! They were the easiest way to declare your own style — and then shed it in a heartbeat when you went to Grandma's. It's no surprise this trend lasted well into the 90s.

And if your jeans, or your jackets, or your shirts weren't accented enough, you broke out the Bedazzler, which allowed you to set plastic gemstone cabochons and metal studs into your clothes. The metal points sometimes snagged on other things, and they were often scratchy if you put them on clothes worn against the skin, but I liked the ones I put on my jacket to create a starry night sky! Let's not forget "fabric paint" either. Now it may mostly be relegated to the use of kitschy flea market/grandma clothes, but back in the day, no surface was safe! Neon paint, glitter paint, puffy paint, glow in the dark paint ... never mind the fact that they rendered a shirt stiff as a board or cracked and crumbled. Iron-on transfers were so popular there were stores dedicated to them for years; now they can be found once again in retro-focused shops. Still, the transfers would fade into just a glittery shape after a while. (The spirit of the transfer can certainly be found in the likes of such businesses as cafepress or Neighborhoodies, which print designs of your own making onto shirts for a nominal fee.) The transfer shop near me also dealt in airbrushing; I remember being trés impressed at the time, watching the artists for hours. It was probably a huge case of trademark infringement (yeah, I highly doubt the guy who 'brushed me a Slimer shirt when I was twelve actually had a license to use the character), but I guess nobody cared back then. At Disney World, they have robots doing the airbrushing now, but I have to admit that airbrushing in art now looks extremely dated to me....

Heavy Metal shirts were big, and with them, the stereotype of the "stoner". Wearing a button-down shirt marked you as a "preppy" (said shirts were worn with the collar up in those days, especially if worn under a sweater or sweatshirt). Baggy t-shirts were in, especially when, if you were a girl, you tied the corner in a knot, or ran it through a piece of decorative plastic or metal. Baggy sweaters and sweatshirts were in for girls, especially if you wore a low-riding belt around the waist and the neck revealed at least one shoulder. Shoulder pads were in, especially in over-sized sportscoats. Sportscoats were usually pastel, and worn with brightly-coloured t-shirts. Half-shirts/midriffs (the predecessor to today's baby-t, I reckon), tube tops, and crop tops were hot.

Suspenders, be they clipped on or part of overalls, besides being worn in the usual fashion, were either clipped on but left to hang at your hips, as if you'd forgotten to finish dressing, or else crossed in front rather than the back . Sometimes you wore one properly and one down at your side. For girls, it was common to wear them with a half-shirt, especially if the shirt was also off-the-shoulder. (I rather like that look even now, myself... just not on me!)

Belts were often three inches wide or wider, comprised of big circles of metal, or else brightly-coloured leather or fabric cut in a triangular fashion. The latter variety would also often have appliqué of some kind, usually a mirror-like or glittery material. The buckle was often off to the side rather, or even in the back, rather than centered. These corset-like belts were worn with shirts or sweaters that could often pass for dresses, they were so long.

Let's not forget socks! The short, ankle-baring kind with the pom-pom in the back was big when I was little. Why, I wonder? The damn pom-poms always came off! Later there was the baggy, layered-sock look. It was fun pairing up colours that accentuated your ensemble, but a) it was hard to get yer damn foot in the shoe then, b) my feet were burning up before long, and c) it felt like every stitch in the socks was cutting into my feet by the end of the day.

Clothing with special attributes were hot in that decade. Remember the thermal gloves where an image would appear on them in the cold? Or the shirts that would change colour with your body heat? (Yeah, um, who thought that was a good idea? Yes, let's tell everyone when I'm all hot and bothered. ... Okay, so I had one of those shirts, and I wore the damn thing constantly. Did I say I was smart?) And then there were glow-in-the-dark clothes (yes, we still have them to day, but it started back then, and that was also when they were at the height of their popularity). I remember my very first such shirt bore a "Captain EO" logo, from the 3-D film at EPCOT Center that starred Michael Jackson. And speaking of him...

Just as in ever other decade, the '80s had its fair share of trends started by pop culture icons, such as in the examples I mentioned already. Michael Jackson either started or encouraged the trend of wearing leather jackets (especially red or black) covered in zippers and mesh (and maybe parachute pants? I think he at least wore them, and they went well with the jackets). He also brought us the trend of wearing a single (usually rhinestone-laden) glove. The movie Flashdance either started or greatly encouraged the trends of: wearing dance gear — leotards, legwarmers, coloured (and sometimes ripped) tights/nylons, spandex, wristbands, sweatbands — as streetwear; and wearing clothes turned inside out. (I remember my uncle giving me such a shirt, with the stitching worn on the outside, that said "Flashdance", and I didn't "get" it. My mom ended up returning it for me. Well, I was about eight; I grew to appreciate the look a few years later, though I didn't generally put it into practice.) Madonna's original style quickly became less-original when teen girls everywhere emulated her look, wearing lots of lace (especially in the form of fingerless gloves and big bows), short and many-layered skirts, and sleeveless shirts. I loved the look, but (surprise-surprise) never really wore it.

Leather aviator/"bomber" jackets were an extremely expensive (and therefore short-lived) trend, thanks to Indiana Jones (and maybe the "dramedy" TV series Tales of the Gold Money). It was resurrected in the 90s when the third Indiana Jones film came out; the animated series Tailspin, featuring Baloo of Disney's The Jungle Book in a pulp-adventure, anthropomorphic setting, probably also contributed to the interest for the kiddie crowd. At any rate, I started collecting patches in the hopes of plastering them all over a bomber jacket of my own, but never actually got one. Some of the patches were used on that jean jacket at least. Indiana also sparked a bit of a Fedora trend, which my dad got into (although arguably it also helped out with his "Tom-Baker-as-Dr.-Who" look.)

Suzette: The aspects of the punk movement that resonated with me most were the ideas of crossing borders, making the mainstream bigger and Do-It-Yourself culture. Punk was a popular expression of the postmodern, the idea that culture isn't a monolithic national story, but a shifting stream of multiple narratives across time and cultures. The preppy look, for example, was a fashion narrative that counted on a specific language: you had to have the Lacoste alligator shirts, the Dockers pants, the Sperry topsiders. But there were no specific labels or prescribed looks for punks: if you could find it, make it or distress it in a way that didn't make sense, it was punk. The punk fashion narrative was the anti-narrative.

In this spirit, my wardrobe emphasized contradictions, layers and eclecticism. Some of my favourite strategies were:

1. Pairing items of clothing that were too big with things designed to look too small, like bowling shirts with peddle-pusher length stovepipe jeans (Lee Wright constructs a theory of fashion from examining the "too small" phenomenon in her essay "Outgrown Clothes for Grown Up People" in Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader: "...for many people, an item [of clothing] which is too tight or too small is the sign that it should be discarded. The 'outgrown' impression [...] challenges the 'idea' or 'universal' system of Fashion Language because it contradicts man of its rules.")
2. Wild androgynous hair with conservative men's suits (I stole that from Laurie Anderson).
3. Conservative hair (like a bob) with zippered and laced up bondage skirts, spikes, fishnet hose and granny boots.

A skirt I picked up on Montreal best epitomized these contradictions: it was made of army-like olive drab material, fashioned to look like a skirt version of a motorcycle jacket, with a zipper slashing diagonally across the front. It would be worn baggy or cinched on the side with a buckle on a length of woven canvas army belt material.

Contradictorily (of course), I was also fond of Donna Karan's "seven easy pieces system" of timeless basics that you could wear anywhere, anytime, in any combination. It was as like to superhero costuming as I'd ever seen in mainstream fashion. Personally, I liked:

1. Turtleneck bodyshirts.
2. Wrap skirts.
4. Capes or cape-like shawls.
5. Matching opaque hose.
6. Everything in black jersey.
7. Wide, waist-clinching belts.
8. Contrasting silver or gold-tone metal buckles, zippers, buttons, accessories.

You could toss all that in a bag and it could be your official all-purpose Super-stylish Woman outfit!

Corrina Lawson: My senior year in high school, in 1983, suddenly wearing a white shirt with a multi-colored rainbow became all the rage. Was this a gay pride thing gone crazy? An urge by some designed to perk up, along the lines of "Don't Worry, Be Happy?"

I have no idea, except that every girl in the school seemed to acquire one in the space of one month. The most popular rainbow shirts were the ones with the three-quarter sleeves, of course. However, once K-Mart got into the act and started making cheap knock-offs, rainbow shirts suddenly became stupid.

I had mine for a long while, sitting in a drawer. Until one day I looked at it and wondered how I ever thought it looked cool. What were we thinking?

Sheena: Being the tomboy that I was, my jeans were constantly getting the knees ripped and torn out, which meant patches ... and patches for my patches. Having the patches made in shapes like stars and hearts was even better, and of course it would be a completely different shade of denim to accentuate that they were there. And stirrup pants? ick. Sad to say, I did actually have a pair at one point ... and so did one of my Barbies.

Fabric paint was definitely used a lot. I had a birthday party one year where we gave all the girls hats to decorate with sequins, beads, and lots and lots of fabric paint (I painted shirts at another party). And whether you painted an actual picture on the shirt, or just "fingerpainted" it slinging it everywhere, it was very cool to sport your handmade design.

Rebecca Salek: Short pants that buttoned right below the knee. Anyone else remember these? Knickerbockers. At least, that's what they were called in my little corner of Minnesota; and I have no idea if the trend spread beyond my home state. But they were big — really big — for, oh, about six months. Mom, of course, bought me a pair the month they went from "cool" to "lame." So, there I was, on the cutting edge of lameness.

When in Doubt, Accessorise!

Wolfie: The first big jewelry trend I remember was the items that declared friendship. Friendship bracelets and anklets were the simplest — you didn't even have to buy them if your mother had some embroidery floss she was willing to part with. Besides, didn't making it yourself mean more? My friends and I weren't especially talented weavers, so ours were just basic tri-toned braids. There were friendship pins, which again were easy to make yourself: you put beads on a safety pin. then each of you wore a safety pin that was strung through the holes in the bead-laden pins you were given. My particular circle and I never indulged in that particular practice. We did latch onto the next one, though: the friendship charm. It was usually a heart that said "best friends" and was cut in a zig-zag down the middle; you wore one half, while your friend wore the other. (You can still find these today.) Of course, the look of a broken heart became prophetic; few seemed to remain friends for very long with the person with whom they shared the charm. My own best friend (I've known her for over twenty years) said we had one, but I didn't remember ours at all, only the ones I had with two other girls that I haven't seen since Sophomore year of high school (and I'm 30). Sure enough, she still has her half, so now I feel like a total heel — especially since I'm the one who gave it to her, and I don't even remember doing it! Some bright fellow made charms that were cut into three; this made things a little better, but what if you had a foursome-friendship? At any rate, the "return of the half-a-charm" became a sort of ritual on the playground.

Going back to bracelets, wearing India-style metal bangles was a trend; the more you jangles, the better! Do you remember the brightly-coloured, translucent jelly bracelets? They were so much fun! They were cheap (so when they broke, it wasn't a huge deal), and you could do all sorts of tricks with them! As time went on, they started making glittered bracelets, and then thick, water-and-glitter/bead-filled ones. Finally someone caught on to the trend, and suddenly the glow-in-the-dark necklaces that were once the providence of amusement parks made it into shops like Claire's Boutique and Spencer's, with bracelet-sized ones as well. Using a plastic connector, you could make a freakin' rope if you wanted. Hard plastic also got into the game, in big, clunky, transparent things that rippled or spiraled, that hurt like hell when you banged your wrist into anything. And let's not forget slap-bracelets, those thin, inch-wide strips of metal covered in even thinner fabric. You straightened it out, pressed in the center so that it remained straight, then slapped it against your wrist so that the center bowed our and the metal curled abound your wrist. It was an addictive motion, and felt good in an S&M sort of way. Unfortunately, the fabric sometimes ripped, and then you'd get sliced by the metal; because of this, many schools banned them.

Earrings and I have never really gotten along; I like the way they look, but even hypo-allergenic ones are painful to wear, so I've barely worn any since high school. It was my mother who followed the various earring trends in my family. Actually, it was more like she took advantage of the trends, but really she would have worn them anyway (and still does). The bigger, sillier, and more interactive they are, the happier she seems to be. I don't know how she keeps them from tangling in her hair like they frequently did in mine. (And here ears are double-pierced, too, so I always expected the pairs to get tangles together!) She had thousands of earrings in the eighties; choosing what to wear was a very time-consuming process. She never did get into the whole "wearing mis-matched earrings" thing, though. For a while at my school, that was another "friendship" trend — trading one of your earrings with your best gal-pal for the day. (I never did that, as my ears were frequently bleeding.) I remember there being a big hullabaloo about how guys were starting to wear earrings. I think this may have been when I first learned about the concept of homosexuality, because supposedly if a guy wore an earring on the right, he was straight, and if he wore it on the left, he was gay. Of course these days guys can wear like twenty in both ears and no one would think anything of it. Well, except for the people who would object to a guy wearing an earring in the first place.

Even timepieces got into the trendsetting-act. The biggest watch at the time was the Swatch, a Swiss brand that had interchangeable faces, bands, and guards. I had one: clear with neon lines going through that looked something like a circuit-board, and a removable green guard. There were Swatches that you wore as a charm on a necklace. They even made Swatches you could wear on your fingers! (Here's a fun fact: "Team Disney", the former administrative office-building at Disney World, was designed to look like a giant Swatch from the air! Why, I have no idea.) Other brands took up these trends as well, usually selling as an interchangeable set as opposed to individual pieces the way Swatches were sold.

And let's not forget those school-accessories, the Trapper-Keeper (which led all your folders and notebooks and often had a pencil-pouch or slots or secret compartments), the lunchbox, the pencil-box, and the backpack. The more gizmos and gadgets you had on your Trapper, the better. All these items (including the pencils) offered one the opportunity to declare one's fandom-devotion on a regular basis. I loved hunting for my favorite characters — when I was given a choice. There were times when my mother went and bought said items without giving me the option. Parents have no idea how cruel they can be sometimes. For example, while I love McDonalds' food, I have never cared overly-much for the characters, and yet I had to go through an entire year with a McDonalds' lunchbox. (Thankfully the teasing wore off quickly.) I was so happy when it finally broke! She again bought my next one without giving me a choice, but it had some cool anime-style characters on it. (It wasn't until nearly two decades later that I learned these were not just some generic characters, but were actually two characters from Starblazers!) The same thing happened with the Trapper she bought me one year, which had a kitten with flowers on it. Sorry, I am not a cat person; I would have liked to have had the option to choose what I would have to look at all year, ne?

Suzette: Looking back, I'd categorize my accessory choices as junk, punk and Manhattan. My Manhattan accessories were inspired by Vogue magazine ads for Donna Karan clothes and Elsa Perretti jewelry: smooth metal cuffs; big, sleek leather belts; a twist of silver pinned to a matte black shirt. I made it a thing of mine that I could dress smooth one day, spikey the next. Or at different times during a day.

For junk, I'd troll the import shops, vintage boutiques and good old Le Chateau, the famously fabulous Canadian retail purveyor of cheap mall-safe punk/new wave wear. I would buy cannisters of thin metal bracelets and wear them all, so that my forearms were entirely rung with the things. I also wore armloads of red, white or black plastic bracelets (blame the cover of Japan's Quiet Life). My older friends were wearing o-rings: black rubber rings they'd get at hardware stores (Madonna popularlized them in her "Lucky Star" video). I stuck with the o-rings for many years, wearing 8 to 10 of them all the time — and I mean ALL the time. In one three-year window, I believe I took them off once, when I'd been baking and managed to encase the rings in dough. Lene Lovich inspired me to add Victorian gothic elements like button-up black silk gloves and lace cuffs.

My favourite punk stuff included a very wide, low-slung leather belt with fringes and conchos (worn over a full-length bodysuit or a sleeveless mock turtleneck and leggings combo, it was like a very short "skirt"), various studded belts and wristbands and a spiked (we used to call them "Christmas tree studs") bootstrap that I wore as a choker. Often, I would pile up all my punk and junk accessories over an outfit that involved a ripped, sleeveless t-shirt with a cheap pair of fishnet tights cut and worn as sleeves (also Siouxsie-inspired). There weren't many people in town wearing stuff like this (everything I learned about punk I got from NME and Melody Maker, the UK music mags I had the downtown cigar and newsstand set aside for me each week; my comic shop was nearby). Ironically, I was once asked to leave West Edmonton Mall just for wearing an innocuous three-row pyramid stud wristband — that I bought at Le Chateau, one of the freakin' stores in the mall!

Sheena: I still have many of my friendship bracelets from the '80s. Some were "store bought" (meaning I paid a quarter to get a plastic bubble from a machine that had a bracelet in it). Others I made from embroidery floss, trying many different types of braids. I even had the kind where you used loops of stretchy fabric (the same kind used to make your own potholders), twisting the first over your fingers, and then "braiding" additional loops into it. Embroidery floss was also used in our hair, looping several colors (in a pattern) down a bit of hair so that the hair was completely covered. I did share a friendship charm with a girl at one point — I think I had the side that said "best" but it's hard to remember.

Slap bracelets were my all-time favorite accessory and I have my originals from the '80s. In fact, I still wear my black and red fuzzy one now ... though I bought it a couple years ago when they made a brief reappearance. I loved to uncoil them and slap them back into place on my arm, and, going along with Wolfie's mention of the S&M theme, we would often use them as "handcuffs" in games we played. I never knew anyone injured by one, and I certainly wasn't, nor did I ever see one come out of the fabric, but I do remember the big stink about them hurting kids.

I loved earrings in the '80s I had tons of them. Claire's was the best because I could get a whole bunch and get stamps on my "Claire's card" for a % off my next purchase. Most of my big, oversized earrings were holiday related (bats, pumpkins, Christmas trees, hearts, four-leaf clovers, etc). Now I prefer my simple earrings, but weird piercings to my cute, colorful, occasionally plastic, and sometimes big earrings of the '80s but they were so much fun!

And I was a Trapper Keeper addict. They had cute pictures, and they closed up with Velcro so nothing could fall out. Ok, so we played with the Velcro trap enough that it eventually wouldn't stay shut anyway, but the point was we could put anything and everything into it.

Rebecca: Beaded safety pins. Wearing those on your sneakers (especially pinned to the laces) was considered the ultimate in cool back home. I don't think I ever had any.

I hate to say it, but the closest I ever came to starting a fashion accessory trend was by wearing my watch through a belt loop on my jeans. Of course, I was the only one who thought it was cool.

Make-up... or War Paint?

Wolfie: I was (and still am, really) a huge fan of the animated series Jem and the Holograms, a series about the adventures of a rock star in the music business; by proxy, the series was about the fashion industry, too. Besides many of the fashion trends already mentioned, most of Jem's characters featured eyeshadow that was brightly-coloured and not limited to the immediate eye area, and heavy blush. They often made shapes and swirls and other fanciful designs. Think of the band Kiss, but without the white face paint underneath, and far more colourful. Alas, while I loved the look on the show, it never really worked in real life — not with store-bought make-up, anyway. Unless done with proper supplies, with a great amount of artistry and in a showmanship-driven environment (such as in Cirque du Soleil or on a fashion-show runway), these days if you wore something like that you'd probably be mistaken for a call-girl. In fact, I remember magazines and MTV declaring at the start of the 90s that the rule of the day for makeup was to now look like you weren't wearing any. Happily, for the new millennium, we've found a happy medium, whimsical and glittery without looking trashy. Then again, we might come to se today's styles as trashy too in a decade or so...

Suzette: My dad made me wear makeup to take a summer job at his office, so I took revenge by emulating Lene Lovich, Siouxsie Sioux and Nina Hagen. Want make-up? Well, here's too much of it! Shiseido used to make the best felt-tipped eyeliner, perfect for drawing flourishes at the outer corners of the eyes. It was the kind of thing that would come in handy for making that perfect little curlicue under Death's eye in Sandman.

Sheena: Kaboodles! Every girl had at least one to put all her make-up in. And believe me, those of us that were iceskating (and probably things like gymnastics and such too) carried these with us everywhere — they made travel sizes as well as the economy size (both of which I had) and many inbetween. And one bit of makeup that was sure to be in there was those little accessories for headbands, bracelets, hair clips, necklaces, etc. They would click in and out of place on the brightly colored accessory with just a turn, and then the the lid on this square/triangle/circle would open revealing eyeshadow, blush or lipstick. And not to be outdone, a similar item came out, but the compartment that had the makeup in it could be transformed into an animal with a head and paws that could fold into and out of the compartment. Make-up could be worn and accessorized with at the same time — ready for "touch-ups" whenever we needed them.

These Shoes Were Made For Walkin'... About Three Feet

Wolfie: Jelly wasn't worn just on the wrist: there were flats made of that rubbery-plastic too. Unlike the bracelets, though, these were generally more opaque, with a pearly sheen. I had one pair that I adored; they were super-comfortable! Unfortunately, since they were made in a fancy sort of net-design, jellies cracked and wore out quickly, and no pair I had after that first set was ever so nice. The ones I had after all cut into my feet and gave me blisters, presumably because they had less rubber and more plastic than that first pair.

There were flats made of lace, too, a la Madonna. They took a bit of breaking-in, but once they were, I adored them, they were so cute! They, too, fell apart far too quickly (and they got dirty very easily). And they had next to no traction. But they were cute, dammit!

High-tops were big in the day, especially Converse. Back then, high-tops were less of a gym-shoe and more of a colourful canvas shoe crossed with a hiking-boot. I never even wanted a pair, but I guess for those who did, half the fun of them was lacing them up with fancy or neon laces, especially the ones that were curly-qs.

The eighties also introduced the use of Velcro on gym shoes. This was much more my speed — I liked not having to worry about my shoelaces coming undone, and liked how easy it was to get a shoe on or off. Velcro soon spread to other articles of clothing, and to accessories like back-packs, and it never went away.

Suzette: I adore shoes! I always tried to buy shoes that were stylish but never too trendy so they would never go out of fashion. (I still wear shoes I bought 20 years ago!) I bought shoes that echoed my favourite eras in shoe history: Louis XIV France, Victorian, 1920s/30s, 1970s punk. Most of my shoes were walkable because I don't drive. The ones which I got the most service out of were a pair of pointy-toed Doc Martens, a pair of witch boots (similar to the popular post-punk staple of flat-heeled, pointy-toed boots with zippers and buckles; mine were lace-up instead) and, in the early days, a pair of hi-tops styled like boxer's boots (I wear a recreation of them these days, by MAG). I give all my footwear nicknames: my Wonder Woman sandals, my Emma Peel boots, my elf shoes, etc. I've got about 40 pairs, almost enough to make a full 52-card deck of artist trading cards!

Click to enlarge.

Sheena: I wore my jelly shoes till they literally fell apart. Yes, they caused many a blister, but they were the best shoes in the world. And to tell the truth, if they brought them back and made a pair in my size, I would definitely have to have a pair. I had several pairs in the '80s all different colors and slightly different styles. If I remember correctly a red pair was my first, and I know I had a pair that was clear light pink with glitter in them.

And I know I had at least one pair of high-tops. Today I live in my hiking boots, and I think since I lived in my iceskates, that my ankles got quite used to the support (I really dislike the normal tennis shoe cut). I had curly-q neon yellow/green laces but I never put them in my shoes. I did however, use laces that said things on them or were glittery or neon.

Wolfie: And that wraps up this edition of Tart Time Machine. We'd love to hear about your own fashion nightmares, so drop us a line for our Going Postal mail column!