More 1980s Sports Wear For Men - The Way Things Changed - 1981 And 1989....

UGH! 1981! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... "Sporty mix 'n' match separates in a comfortable jersey-knit with 'tennis' motif". Never fear. As the 1980s continued, sportswear would never look the same again. Thank heavens.

Some of these aren't too bad... but hardly exciting.

In fact, 1981 was simply not very exciting in the world of sportswear. And just look at that dreadful bubble perm (far right)! Still (smiles fondly), good old Fred Perry!

1989 - the ultimate year of the 1980s - "The Style Decade" - and sportswear was certainly stylish by then. So much had changed since 1981. All the designs featured are SO much of the era. And that lad in the second pic looks like he's finding the fact a painful experience. Makes me eyes water.

Tragically, by 1989, many of us were on pose overdrive. But never mind. Those tracksuit designs are now called "classic" and highly sought after. Classic? They're pure 1980s, darlings! But fashion snobs HATE acknowledging the fact! Nevertheless, these designs are very influential and popular today. And I LOVE them!

Le coq sportif. By 1989, some even quite working class men were going to the gym! Sports clothes for men had become colourful, modern, designer. So handy for getting down to a serious workout. Or nipping out to the corner shop for a packet of fags.

1980s Fashions... Suitable Trends For Today?

1986 - posing overdrive for women...

 Looking around, I see many 1980s-influenced fashions around me. The leggings. The deelyboppers. The blonde hair streaks. The gelled or moussed look. '80s sportswear-influenced designs on outdoor coats and modern sportswear. Stone and acid washed jeans. The turned back/pushed up jacket sleeve look. I've even seen jelly shoes! And lots more... 

Clearly (although many hate to admit it) the '80s are now highly influential in the modern fashion world. Here's a few tips from a few UK mail order catalogues of the 1980s for those who want to get the look just right... 

Male posing for the 1980s... the trouble with the pushed up sleeve effect is that they keep coming down. The '80s look is very high maintenance indeed. Try walking with your arms close to your side, or buying a jacket with a nice contrasting inner lining so that you can solve the problem by turning back your sleeves instead of pushing them up.

Where Jane Fonda first flew in 1982 with her Workout video, others soon followed. Aerobics woz 'ere. In fact, as the '80s went on, sport and fitness became a positive mania, and sportswear became ever more colourful and expensive as we entered the era of designer sports fashions. Fit for business. Fit for life.

"It's my broker!" grins the geezer on the chunky phone, seeking to impress. Looks like a right yuppie, doesn't he? Love the suit. So very stylish... And by the mid-1980s, style was what it was all about. Well, the '80s idea of style, that  was.

 Some great mid-1980s winter warmth jackets. I had the one on the left!

 Lustre look sheen fabric... the '80s shiny suit... brill! I've still got one of mine, a grey one with over large shoulders, and recall sliding down the wall at Tracy's Nite Spot in it after quaffing back a bit too much of the Reassuringly Expensive Stella Artois, circa 1987. I'd been leaning against the wall nonchalantly, eyeing up the talent, glass in hand, when I felt my descent begin.  I managed not to spill a drop.

"Hello, is Giles there please? It's his broker calling."

"Giles, it's your broker!"

"Tell him I'm in the bog, would you purlease, mateyboots?"

Something for 1986 kids. I'm absolutely positive that the lad on the left is (then) future pop star Chesney Hawkes (remember that rascally early 1990s hit The One And Only? We do. But we wish we didn't).

Late 1980s - terrific designs for posey male sportswear, hugely influential on the 1990s, and still influencing today's sports fashions.

1989...

Making a splash in '89...

Black leggings, ending around the knee, swept into fashion around 1982. And were still up there in 1989.

More from 1989. That belt looks really industrial, doesn't it? What did it mean? Search me...

And a last blast from 1989... Hot off the beach... WOW!

But suppose you've seen all these delights, you've thought it all through, and you don't want to adopt ANY of these swingorilliant  '80s trends?

Well, suit yourself.

There's no accounting for taste...

Fashion 1989 - Beach - And Other Wear...

Twirling back to 1989 and the final year of our decade of uproar with a look at fashion. Chris Rea, of course, knew all about being on the beach, and so did the young lady above, in her highly lovely wetsuit-style fitted swimsuit with fluorescent pink trim. WOW! And what about the round the middle garb? Pass. And the wrist garb? Sports band? Wrist warmer? Pass again! Anneka Rice had a jump suit of a similar colour scheme to this costume in the hugely popular Channel 4 Treasure Hunt series.

All-in-one baggy fit trousers with braces back. Terrific.

Into the sea, you and me... lovely stretch jeans and colourful rugby tops. The jeans on the left were available in two washes and had ankle zips - so practical. Many jean legs were so narrow in the 1980s it was clear the designers had never heard of feet.

An array of lovely swimming costumes for that up-to-the-moment look. The two on the right would create a very interesting tan line!

Another all-in-one. Not sure why these were popular really.

Step out in leggings. From around 1982 onwards these things were all the rage and seem as much an '80s fashion statement as shoulder pads to me!

"Hot off the West Coast, beachboys and girls hit the streets and shores with the latest surf inspired style. A cult rather than a craze, the look injects colour into casual fun looks."

Goodness - what an industrial looking belt - and as for the ear-rings!

Nice shoulders... enjoy the power-dressed look in cool cotten.

Flourescent pink newsprint swimsuit. Gorgeous!

Here's Lorraine Chase having her own collection in the 1989 Look Again catalogue: "Glamorous good looks come easily with careful planning. Plan now with this fabulous collection of stylish separates and you just can't go wrong!" Not 'arf!

Acid House

One of the big "things" in 1988 and 1989 - the smiley face! Created in the 1960s and long associated by us plebs with kids' badges and jolly tea mugs, the face was suddenly the symbol of a rather frantic and frankly rather naughty progression from the House Music scene called Acid House. I was confused. House music had been created in Chicago - 1983 was 'Year Zero' for House - and the sound had not begun to go wide until midway through the decade.

And now we had ACID House. Say what?!

The smiley face was soon cropping up on T-shirts everywhere, accompanied by the slogan "Right On One Matey!" The elders got themselves into a right old stew about it all, whilst many youngsters, bored with being garishly posh, gothy, Indie or synthy, eagerly embraced the chance to get sweaty under strobe lights, and move about to weird electronic noises and samples.

And if you had to break into somebody else's warehouse or barn to do it, all the better!

Some newspapers seemed alarmed. A new drug culture, and the kids acting up again. Oh dear! Where had Acid House sprung from?

The Observer observed in 1988:

Drugs Fear as the 'acid house' cult revives a Sixties spectre

"Acid house" started in four London clubs... In the past month it has "taken off", spreading to other clubs around the country.

1988 and 1989 were wild. Absolutely evil according to some! The elders were definitely rattled!

From the Sun, August 28, 1989:

More than 25,000 youngsters - some aged only ELEVEN - went wild at a huge acid house party yesterday as the police watched helplessly.

Dozens of evil pushers raked in a fortune openly selling the mind-bending drug Ecstacy at £10 a time - with a bottle of mineral water to wash it down.

A police superintendent and WPC moved through throngs of spaced-out teenagers as dealers chanted "E, hash, weed" to the beat of the music.

School-age children rolled their own reefers.

But the officers were only there to make sure there was no trouble while notices about the noise were served on the organisers.

The 15-hour bash started on Saturday night when hordes of acid house fans converged on the village of Effingham, Surrey.

Cars, coaches and vans poured into Newmarsh Farm for the £30-a-head "Energy Summer Festival".

Youngsters from as far way as Leeds, Swindon and Ipswich screamed "Mental, mental" as lasers lit the sky.

Headlines from the Sun CONDEMMING the drug craze flashed on a huge video screen.

Party organisers made an estimated £500,000 from the bash - which cost about £50,000 to stage.
Police, who only heard of the party hours before, at first stopped youngsters entering the site.
But as thousands joined the crush, senior officers decided it was safer to let them in.

About 70 police were on duty, but there were only seven arrests - two for alleged drug offences.
Police will quiz the organisers and those responsible for the land.

A spokesman said:

* An acid house bash, tagged The Heat, was smashed at the weekend because it was a FIRE RISK.

* Around 10,000 revellers were expected to head for a disused factory at West Bromwich, West Midlands.

* But the local council won an injunction to ban the party after fire experts declared the building unsafe.

* Only 30 youngsters, mainly from London, arrived at the factory, but were promptly turned away by the police.

"There could be criminal charges."

Michael Grylls, MP for North West Surrey, said: "It is a massive indictment of parents that they allow their children to attend this sort of thing."

Fellow Tory Terry Dicks said: "These parents should be fined, if not sent to prison."
Monks at a silent order at West Kingsdown, Kent, were disturbed by 3,000 at a nearby acid house party.

Master of a little-known DJ skill called Transformer Scratching (making a record sound like a robot's voice), James Dorrell was hailed as a pioneer of "English hip-hop". Dorrell, who was also in M/A/R/R/S (Pump Up The Volume), was interviewed in 1988 and said of Acid House:

"It's really crazy, psychedelic music. There's no real tune, just lots of studio technology. You can also scratch other bits of records over the top of the beat and add to the effect. The other day I found an amazing old record by Brian Clough of all people! I used this bit where he says, "He's got a good left foot that lad!" over a serious Chicago House groove. It sounded brilliant!"
Mind you, imagination and originality were needed. Dorrell again:

"If I hear another James Brown yelp or This is a journey into sound again I'll scream!"

Despite the '60s psychedelic references (particularly the return of the lava lamp, which became HUGE in the 1990s, reaching its highest ever sales), the new drug culture (just what was this ecstacy?!) and so on, followers of Acid House were not hippies. From what I saw, they were harder, more streetwise, more working class - "On One Matey!" rather than "Peace Man!" The music too was very different. 20th Century Words by John Ayto, describes it thus:

Acid House n (1988) a type of house music with a very fast beat, a spare, mesmeric, synthesised sound, and usually a distinctive gurgling bass noise. Also applied to the youth cult associated with this kind of music, characterised by a vogue for warehouse parties, a revival of psychedelia, and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs. "Acid" may well be the slang word for LSD, although many cultists claim that it comes from the record "Acid Trax" by Phuture (in the slang of Chicago, where this music originated in 1986, "acid burning" means "stealing", and the music relies heavily on "sampling" a polite word for stealing musical extracts).

Did you join in or want to put an end to the "menace"? From the "Sun", November 18, 1988.