In the past couple of weeks, I've seen and heard several references to how ridiculous shorts looked on men in the 80s. I couldn't agree more, even though I was one of those men who wore them.
The clothing that was popular in the 80s doesn't have many defenders-- even among those who actually wore the big hair, and the super short shorts, the spandex pants, and the neon colors. I'm not going to even try to defend such things, even though it was my decade. I had the long hair (with bleached out tips) and the fake black leather jacket and even the cowboy boots. I suspect I looked more like Meatloaf (the singer) on a bad fashion day than I did anything else. But you live and you learn and you laugh and then you wait for the next trend to come along and get to laugh some more.
I've had a chance to do a lot of laughing in recent years. The current generation thinks that their fashions are "it," much like we did back then. As if titled baseball caps, "shorts" that go down to the ankles, and pants that sag much further than ought to be legal are going to stand the test of time. To some degree, they might--much like every other fashion, they all seem to make a comeback at some time or another. And in my opinion, that's where the irony lies.
80s fashion has made a comeback in the last couple of years. I remember when I saw the first signs of it in 2006. I saw a young woman, probably no older than 20, wearing a skirt with leggings underneath. Initially, I thought she might be on her way to an 80s party, but then I started seeing more young women dressed like her and I determined in my totally inept fashions sense sort of way that 80s fashion must be back, at least to a degree. I'm not expecting to see any guys wearing short shorts any time soon.
I've lived long enough to see trends come and go and come again. And I lived long enough to realize that my generation didn't "get it right" (as if that were even possible). Every generation thinks they have it right until they look back at the pictures twenty years later.
