In the early 80s most of British fell in love with the fairytale of the romance of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles of Wales. Diana played family with her husband Prince Charles and sons William and Henry inside and outside Kensington Palace. She did it well, through could hardly be remarked with BAFTA, and became a recognized fashion icon, like Jacqueline Kennedy was in the 60s, — thanks to her refined, but else quite simple wardrobe, or, more likely, the costumes for the famous play. That started with her romantic wedding dress made of 40 meters of silk fabric by Elizabeth and David Emanuel and consisted of a corsage with sleeves in Empire style, a fluffy skirt trimmed with ancient English lace and a 7.5-meter traîne. The dress of Princess Diana inspired designers to create romantic collections and thousands of young girls, all over the world, — to wear dresses with wide skirts to knees, silk blouses with romantic flounces and small collars, ruffles, neckties and bows.
A blond girl in “Take On Me” Music Video, drawn in a kind of magic dream with the mischievous imp in a leather jacket, —looks like Princess Diana in a simple unadorned baggy dress and with a fashionable hairstyle of around 1981-1982.
Since 1985 up to 1992, “The Golden Girls”, an American sitcom, was aired on television and gained huge popularity proved with winning eleven “Emmy” awards, four Golden Globes Awards. The series also put an end to NBC’s ratings slump, along with “The Cosby Show”, “227”, “Night Court”, “Miami Vice”, and “L.A. Law”, so was remade in countries across Europe in 2000s. Blanche the lusty harlot, Rose the “dumb blonde”, Dorothy, a sarcastic supply teacher, and her hilarious mother Sophia come from Sicily — those zingy grandmas gave no way to girls of the younger age and showed up the right style for grown-ups who are still in search for true love. They could wear floral garments of bold colours as their casual wear, flashing elegance and femininity, reverentially veiled beyond silk, crepe de Chine, cashmere, cotton, chiffon, and satin. The costume designer Judy Evans did a wonderful job keeping her eye on the Golden Girls to dress up à la mode in glittering black or pastel-coloured evening gowns of square silhouettes with emphatic wide shoulders and obscure waist.
Meanwhile, there were mainly two types of evening skirts for romantic looks those days: fluffy or fitting skirts, — the ones that would be completely unacceptable even for the bravest grandmas. When the night fell down a city, dreamy young ladies poshed up themselves in dresses by Versace, Escada, Emanuel Ungaro, Christian Lacroix, Valentino, Cerutti, or Chanel, — trimmed with lace, guipure, or tulle, and wore long gloves, drawings one’s attention to beauty of hands and grace of movements. The illustrations by Tony Viramontes show those images to us to the full extent of their power, among with yuppies, the impression, which notable names make, and the latest quite things they produce.
During the day, clothing was simpler: blouses with flounces and ruffles, jackets, and typically fitting high waist trousers, pencil skirt, case dresses, and so on. Oversized pullovers of soft materials made a girl looking small, sensual and fragile, among with laced stockings put together with heavy leather boots or a pair of sport-chic shoes adding a pinch of obstinacy to the whole image as a self-defense. Laced accessories were quite normal: lace gloves, lace headbands, lace details on dresses, etc.
We shall take a look, briefly, at tendencies of 80s fashion that would help in restoring a romantic retro-image these days.
The plushy velour, which essentially combined the luxurious feel of velvet with the stretchy properties of spandex, was everywhere in 1980s. Foremost designers put out cozy v-neck pullovers made of velour. Velour trousers look elegant and do catch an eye so dress them up with a turtleneck of darker shadow and a small tiny chiffon or silk neckerchief of a colour as similar as possible (or exactly the same). A relative look would be perfect for work on Friday, for attending or giving a lecture, or for doing some business in town. To be on save side, pick gray colour.
Most of dreamy girls of 80s would decorate their hairdos with atlas ribbons, bows and ties. Louder than any average one of those, scrunchies, done up in a sparkling fabric or a bright saturated colour, — kept side ponytails and long hair the right way, and more — started being used as a wrist accessory. The scrunchies are best for wearing them at school or in everyday clothes, with wavy one-side pigtails and a T-shirt with a logo.
Some psychologists claim such an accessory as big circled earrings looks voluptuous. During the 1980s, door-knockers were worn by everyone from pop stars to the girl in the next door. They were perfect on the score of loudness. Through such a feature is the reason for not being used in a romantic retro-image, — you can, however, take them on in order to avoid looking too mawkish in light pink knitted clothes.
A devoted follower of fashion ought to take Lady Gaga’s look, when she interviewed His Holiness Dalai Lama, as a sample and pay attention for the dresses by Hanae Mori. The intelligent and well-educated Japanese designer followed the European tradition in her work and kept on very feminine, smart, refined style, also used simple cut and tiny silk fabrics.
The costume of C.C. Catch for the music video on her song “Nothing but a Heartache” of 1989 may be taken as a precious worthy sample of the romantic style of the late 80s. That image of a girl in love is full of high poetic inspiration. She reminds a bird in her small black dress with tight waist — the movements are soaring, they can be compared with wing-stroke of parotia. And even through she is acting in a desert — she lost in the great ocean of love, as great as this desert with its rare “oases”.
As we made it clear previously, the 1980s was an époque of excess: representatives of the generation preferred catchy models in clothing, very short length of a skirt or pants, too fitting or too fluffy cut. Romantic beauty is a typical style for those days, but it still included wild shoulders and glittering fabrics of bold colours. Some people, engaged in fashion industry, say that fashion tendencies come back in 25 years, so now it is time to think about clap eyes on mom’s old wardrobe.
