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Who were your favorite '80's style icons and influences?

Mary Beth (formerly LBD)

(website)

Veteran

Thanks to Alaskagirl, for putting this into my head with the prom post...

When I think about the women whose styles I LOVED (real, and fictional), this is my list:

Olivia Newton-John - my total idol in the early 80's. I couldn't get enough ribbon barrettes, pastel colors, and pretty strappy shoes after I saw "Xanadu". And then she cut her hair short, and was all over MTV, and again, I was totally obsessed. Sadly, my attempts at her hairstyle looked far more like the mom on The Brady Bunch, than they ever looked like Olivia....

Delta Burke as Suzanne Sugarbaker on "Designing Women" She was my modern Scarlett O'Hara. She hijacked any scene she was in, and I always thought the other girls looked like drab little hens next to her glorious plumage.

Jackee Harry as Sandra Clark in '227' That woman had a wardrobe of glorious pencil-skirted suits and matching pumps that I could not wrap my head around, and a sassy attitude to match.

Lauren Tewes as Julie McCoy on "The Love Boat". I unashamedly love nautical because of this woman, although I usually feel silly when I try to wear it.

Pretty much all women's costuming on "The Love Boat", for that matter. Floaty, pretty, bright, cheerful, resort.

Pretty much all costuming, male or female, in "Romacing the Stone" and the Indiana Jones films.

And for men's stuff, I love love loved David Bowie, Duran Duran, and Prince.

Oh.... and whoever costumed women in pretty much every George Michaels video.... I was seduced by all of it

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37 replies

Latest reply was from rachylou

MsMary

Veteran

Princess Diana, without question! I loved her beautiful suits, dresses, gowns, and casual outfits!!

https://www.google.com/search?.....68#imgrc=_

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bj1111

Veteran

kate jackson, in both charlies angel and scarecrow and mrs king.

BLONDIE!!!

joan collins in dynasty.

the glamazon supermodels.

lisa birnbaum

Day Vies

Veteran

Joan Collins and Diahann Carroll in Dynasty, Janet Jackson (Control album), Madonna and Elsa Klensch (Mom and I watched Style every Saturday morning when I was little). I know that runs the gamut, but I was a tween and a teenager during the last half of the '80s.

Gaylene

Veteran

Tina Turner.

I was lucky enough to see her live and have never forgotten the electricity that flowed between her and the audience.

Mary Beth (formerly LBD)

(website)

Veteran

How did I forget Princess Diana??? Or Tina Turner??? Oh, those legs!!

I I never watched Dallas or Dynasty I think this was because it was on during a weeknight, and I had band practice late on the night the show was on, and a ridiculously early wake-up time for the schoolbus (it came rumbling down the street at 6:15 sharp).

Maybe it was the small town we moved to my freshman year, and the lack of cable television there, but I went from being a big Cyndi Lauper fan, to wondering aloud one day, "Madonna Who?" Crazy as that may seem...

Deborah

Veteran

Deborah Harry (Blondie) was my 70's/80's style icon...in my eyes there was no other

ElleH

Veteran

Madonna was the biggest one I think, Debbie Harry, Joan Jett, Cyndi Lauper, Human League, Dead or Alive, Boy George, Chrissy Amphlett from the Divinyls, Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, especially her hair. I think my hairdresser boyfriend who was trendier than me influenced me the most. He got me into baggy clothes back then & cut my mullet perm into a permed bob, which later became a straight bob.

Caro in Oz

Veteran

Off the top of my head Annie Lennox, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry (Roxy Music sneak in to the 80s) Prince, Deborah Harry, Joan Jett.

jayne

Veteran

Madonna all the way. But I never dared dress that wild way and show my bra strapes! how things have changed!

bj1111

Veteran

ooo...joan jett! and pat benatar.

goldenpig

(website)

Veteran

Madonna ca. 1985--I dressed just like her! Lace bows and fingerless lace gloves & long knotted pearls and crimped hair!

Claudia

Veteran

Even back then I knew I didn't really like '80s fashion so I didn't have a style icon or big influence I embraced, but I'd say the most fondly remembered was Jennifer Beals' feminine tomboy from Flashdance (early '80s) and the cast of Thirtysomething (I was in my twenties but married with small children, late '80s).

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krishnidoux

Veteran

So fun!

I realize doing this exercise that the 80's, which I went through as a teenager, were a lot about juxtaposition of extremes in terms of fashion, anyway for the icons that impressed me most:

Isabelle Adjani https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy1yi7q8Rv4 : flowey skirts and oversized masculine rough sweaters, LOTS of structure.

Isabelle Huppert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s6UQb94_w0 strong features, delicate body. Lot's of bare shoulders.

Sophie Marceau: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQFQkG6PgFw androginy, innocence, things that look thrown together in a child-like way but end up being very stylish (probably because she was tall).

Blondie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH3Q_CZy968 : her hairdo, tiny body (unfortunate influence), heels

Cindy Lauper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIb6AZdTr-A her eclectic style, lots of slips and petticoats, wide belts at the waist, multiplication of belts at the hips, multiplication of bracelets, bold mixes of extremes such as lace and military boots.

Madonna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s__rX_WL100 multiplication of necklaces à la Coco Chanel, in a (punky) way, bare arms, lots of eye make-up, wild crazy get-ups covered with structured cropped jackets

Karie

(website)

Veteran

Princess Diana - people used to tell me that I looked like her, and I loved her timeless, classic elegance, and Julia Roberts - I used to have curly, permed hair in those days!

Runcarla

Veteran

The late 70's saw my fashion awakening! I was all over the Annie Hall look...blazer over prairie skirt, with Frye boots, or pleated trousers, with vest, and brogues. I owned the look. Mariel Hemingway and Patti Hansen were the models I followed. I even had the super thin, no eyebrow look. This look followed me into university and morphed into long, full skirts, plaid shirts, chunky sweaters. I also spent a lot of time in a pair of green corduroy overalls, plaid shirt, and work boots...early grunge? And tapered jeans with high waists called 'painter's pants' that first came out in cream and jean (like construction painters wore).

This kind of morphed into Indiana Jones safari look with long full heavy cotton skirts, shirts with rolled up sleeves, and vest with pockets.

I kind of missed the 80's and woke up in the 90's in a pencil skirt!

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Runcarla

Veteran

Sorry, duplicate post.

Laura

(website)

Veteran

What a fun thread!

bj111 - Lisa Birnbaum totally influenced me too. And then I would say the Dead Kennedys. I was equal parts punk and prep and in high school my friends and I would alternate days. One day Izod polos, the next, t-shirts spray painted with "question authority." Silly, huh? I guess we needed to keep ourselves entertained.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

SO FUN! I LOVE THE '80s

First and foremost - Duran Duran and especially Simon le Bon. Depeche Mode is next. I was very inspired by what they wore and just by how they were as people. The ultimate cool when I was between the ages of 11 to 18. I was not at all inspired by Blondie (although I loved her music at age 11 and then moved on), Madonna or Cyndie Lauper. It was all about the British '80s boys and their music videos. I loved what the women wore in those '80s music videos too. That's who I wanted to be - along with duplicating Simon's wardrobe.

I loved the Bill Cosby Show and what Denise wore.

I loved watching Dynasty and Dallas. How could you not

kkards

Veteran

durning college i dressed somewhere between annie lennox and the preppie handbook...yup quite the mix.
after graduation the golden girls...just kidding, but it was the age of Dress for success, and looking back now, i see how conservative and not very fun my choices then were.

Ingunn

(website)

Veteran

Whitney Houston, Princess Diana, Debbie Harry, The Smiths! This is SO fun!

krishnidoux

Veteran

Angie, music wise we are exactly from the same era...

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

That's fun Krish! High five

Echo

Veteran

Definitely Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran - and especially hairstyles. I went wild with my hair at that time. But the influence of Cluture Club was hard to escape, with the era of neons, white and baggy clothing, too. Grace Jones was AMAZING, and I loved the sculptural lines of her outfit and her body.

Mary Beth (formerly LBD)

(website)

Veteran

If I had one thing to say about the 80's, was that regardless of what the style was, there was always a sense of FUN. Decadent fun, adventurer fun, 1940's, androgynous fun, ladylike fun, retro silly frothy lacy fun, pastel fun, metallic fun, parti-colored fun.

I remember being totally blind-sided by grunge. Totally bewildered, because I walked back onto my college campus after four months at Disney World doing a college internship, to find everyone with unwashed hair, wearing plaid, and complaining how badly the world sucked. I was like Tigger bouncing onto the set of The Walking Dead by mistake.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

That is hilarious, La Belle!! (I mean your return to grunge).

My icons were Annie Lennox and Princess Di. Quite the mix!

Deborah

Veteran

Love reading this thread and had to come back to catch up. Krish and Angie, clearly we grew up with the same influences. The 80's for me was all about British music (Blondie really sit in the 1970's. and is one of the few non British bands I liked). Depeche Mode's Black Celebration album (that's right album, not cd) remains one of my absolute favourites:)

Laura, I will never forget my parents reaction to me playing thenDead Kennedy's on stereo in our family room...lets just say they were not amused!

Nicole D

Veteran

Boy George (I had a bowler hat and fingerless gloves), Madonna, the Police (jumpsuits), then later Linda Evangelista, Annie Lennox and Demi Moore (Ghost haircut).

oolagirl(Colleen)

I don't post too often, but I had to chime in for this one!! I was a huge Durannie, but my favorite fashion icon from the 80's hands down, was Denise Huxtable! (aka Lisa Bonet) The oversize sweaters, crazy tops, awesome layers...she had the most amazing wardrobe, and talk about the ability to layer, wrap, twist...just FAB!!

DonnaF

Veteran

I graduated for law school in the mid-'80s, so Dressed for Success and looking like DiFi (Dianne Feinstein) was where all my money went. I didn't like the whole summer-fall-winter-spring theory of wearing colors since it categorized ALL Asians as winters, so I had my colors individually *done*. Spendy, but an investment I still use. I can easily identify my best major colors, but I find my best neutrals like beiges and taupes far more challenging and my swatches make shopping far less of an ordeal.

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