back to the future, already?

The 80’s… ok Ill give it up for the 80’s. It was a great decade, heck, its when I showed up… so it must have been pretty good. But was it really so great that we need to bring it back, especially so soon?
I mean think about it, when someone is looking for a bad hair analogy the fist place they go is 1986.

The hair, its not good… it wasn’t even good then. The clothes, oh, the clothes… there are whole parties are dedicated to the absurdity of the 80’s clothes. Groups of friends going to the Goodwill to find the most heinous outfit that by its very definition is too tight, too short, and too bright.


















And then… the pinnacle of the 80’s fashion world, the piece that you love to hate, the infamous mustache. I cant, for any reason see why any person under 40 would have one. I understand that by law some jobs require them, such as State Trouper, police officer and in some cases fire fighter. Is there any reason for someone else to have one of these? Read on...


Now, it wasn’t until I became aware of how fun it was to attend theme parties where costumes are required or even a costume for big themed event that I understood the shock value and therefore enjoyment, that ridiculous clothes provoked.

Well, only a few decades later these 1980’s clothes are back. They are back even to the point of being main stream. It’s not necessary to go rummage through the clothes at Goodwill because now the new and improved 80’s clothes being sold, at full retail price, right there in the store beside the “conservative” 2008 clothes. As I see more and more people dressed in the most outlandish 80’s apparel I started to realize, its not in fashion, its counter fashion. The new cool is to look uncool. And this of course begs the question, is this what happened in the 80’s? Were all these people so rad not in spite of their clothes but because of them? Was this a fashion revolution that was so enormous that it trickled into the culture and sucked in the unsuspecting shoppers who unknowingly bought clothes to be cool not realizing they were infact uncool? Was this a whole decade where the counter culture was so strong, no one knew what was normal?

As I watch the clothes, hair and of course mustaches of 2008 its clear that this is not a fashion trend but an elaborate farce, an opportunity to wear a costume out in public and not only get attention but be trendy in a anti –trendy in your face kinda way. Of course there are the innocent by standards who in a rush to maintain an acceptable social status naively adhere to this intentional fashion fau paux. Just as I suspect in the 80s there are millions of people who will completely miss the concept and unintentionally become a casualty of this fashion war.

So, as I am daily forced to witness these extra tight boy jeans and short shorts that expose the ultra white thighs not seen since the last clothing “revolution”, I can relax and know that the 80’s weren’t as bad as they once seemed and that the 2008 revival is not to relive the ridiculous trends but to say, “I get it, I can make my whole day a costume party and even rock the ‘stach and no one will be the wiser.”