60 Fun Facts About 80s Fashion

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

The look coincided with women entering management in large numbers, 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?

The show's costume designer Nolan Miller dressed the Carringtons in ever-bigger silhouettes, 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?

The 'Sweats' line got young women back into miniskirts for the first time in a decade and made Velcro shoulder pads mainstream.

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

The look, much of it from London street designers, also included bras worn as outerwear and 'Boy Toy' belt buckles.

Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake brought deconstructed 'avant-garde' fashion West from where?

Their baggy, asymmetrical black clothes were a deliberate rejection of the decade's neon and body-con excess.

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

Edited by Lisa Birnbach, it 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?

Don Johnson's sockless loafers, white linen trousers and permanent stubble came along for the ride.

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

The rule came from an Art Deco revival, and designers Gianni Versace and Hugo Boss were consulted 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?

Julien's Auctions handled the sale two years after Jackson's death.

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

The cheap plastic quartz watch was Switzerland's answer to the Japanese watches that had gutted its industry.

The name Swatch is a contraction of what?

The idea was a low-cost, artistic watch you would buy in addition to a serious one, and then collect by the dozen.

Members Only jackets were sold with the slogan 'When you put it on, ___.'

The jackets, with their narrow epaulettes and collar strap, reached the US in 1980 via Europe Craft Imports.

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

The soft garment-leather shoe rode the exercise-class boom and made Reebok a giant almost overnight.

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

By 1992 more than 100 professional athletes were wearing them.

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

It hit stores on 1 April, a few months after Michael Jordan's rookie season began.

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

Nike's ad claimed the league 'threw them out of the game', which turned out to be superb marketing.

The 1988 Air Jordan III introduced which logo?

Tinker Hatfield's design also introduced elephant-print leather and kept Jordan from leaving Nike.

Tom Cruise sliding across the floor in Ray-Ban Wayfarers helped revive the sunglasses in which 1983 film?

The scene was part of a $50,000-a-year product-placement deal Ray-Ban had signed the year before.

Only 18,000 pairs of Wayfarers sold in 1981. How many sold in 1983, the year of the Tom Cruise placement?

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?

The ivory silk taffeta gown was decorated with 10,000 pearls and valued at about £9,000.

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

At 7.6 metres it was the longest train in royal wedding history at the time and barely fit in the glass coach.

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 ___?

The answer, 'Nothing', made Calvin Klein's designer jeans a sensation and drew complaints to networks.

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

The films Fame, Xanadu and Flashdance and the exercise craze put them on everyone else.

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

The series went on to sell 17 million videos, and it was the first non-theatrical home video to top the charts.

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

The name came from a Paris company called Jelly Shoes, and Bloomingdale's ordered 2,400 pairs in 1983 to start the US craze.

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

A Texas firm, American Garment Finishers, 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?

The look was discovered by accident when someone ran jeans and bleach-soaked stones through a dry washing machine.

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

The track from Raising Hell celebrated laceless shell-toes, and Adidas executives saw a stadium wave them in the air.

Nike's 'Just Do It' slogan, coined in 1988, was inspired by the last words of whom?

Dan Wieden of Wieden+Kennedy borrowed from Gilmore's 'let's do it' before his 1977 execution.

Christian Lacroix, who opened his couture house in 1987, was famous for which short puffball skirt?

The Arles-born designer's house was backed with $8 million from 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?

Everything could be layered over it, and the idea of a mix-and-match capsule wardrobe was born.

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

He shot the brand's first multiracial ad in 1984 and had reframed all its advertising under the slogan by 1989.

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

The 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?

The short hooped crinoline was a Victorian shape shrunk to a mini, and it ran from 1985 to 1987.

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

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?

The design itself was inspired by the elastic waistband on her sweatpants.

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

The reception marked the first London Fashion Week, and the message was aimed at Pershing II missiles being based in Britain.

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?

By that December more than 250,000 had sold, and in some shops they were outselling the singles.

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

Bugle Boy was the best-known maker, though not the first, and the ripstop material was originally for flight suits.

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

Vans had adopted the checkerboard after noticing skateboarders drawing the pattern on their shoes.

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

The ad, set to Marvin Gaye, revived 501s in Britain and sold Levi's over two million pairs of boxer shorts in a year.

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

The name combines silk, angora and wool, and the company started out making hats for soldiers.

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

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, insisting they were too extravagant to be counterfeits?

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?

Carl Jones and TJ Walker's brightly coloured baggy clothes soon showed up on rappers and sitcom stars.

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

The Oxford English Dictionary credits the band, 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?

The accidental off-the-shoulder look ended up on the 1983 poster and in every aerobics class in 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?

The visible air unit was Tinker Hatfield's idea, and the Beatles' company Apple sued over the ad.

Which sneaker company did LA Gear's founder Robert Greenberg start after stepping down in 1992?

LA Gear was founded in 1983 aiming at the women's athletic shoe market and by 1990 was third in sales behind Nike and Reebok.

Which parachute-pants maker was named in reference to young buglers of the American Civil War?

Founded in 1977 as Buckaroo International, the company was renamed in 1980 and became famous for its 1980s 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?

The poorly designed airship was en route to a promotional gala; 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?

Ryūsuke Moriai's resin-cased design has passed 100 million units, runs seven years on one cell and still ignores leap years.

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

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