I Pity the Fool Who Doesn’t Accessorize: Everything You Need to Know About 80s Jewelry
When dressing rooms smelled like Aquanet and nothing could be big enough, the 80s fashion characterized a time when “more” just didn’t feel like enough. More needed more. More blue eye shadow, more hair height, and more jewelry. It only makes sense then that 80s jewelry needed volume. After all, it had to stand out amongst the parachute pants, shoulder pads, and hurricane-proof-standing-on-its-roots hair. It brought...
Friendship Bracelets
Back in the 7th and 8th grade there were several ways to show your love and devotion to your B/F/F. You could exchange little friendship pins, the safety pins with tiny, bright colorful beads on them. We’d wear them up high on the laces of our Puma sneakers or pin them to the straps of our purses. You could also break the sacred “Best Friends” charm in half and wear it on a chain around your neck – this was a ritual reserved for that...
Besties and Boyfriends – Gold Charm Fever
By Lori Ferraro In the mid 80s everybody was dripping in gold, the girls and the guys. From name plates to chains to initial rings to charm necklaces to ID bracelets with your name on it, the gold rush was on during those high school years. Having a B/F/F was like, the best thing ever. My best friend in 8th grade was Tracey, and everybody knew that. But in case you didn’t know that, we had this to tell you: Tracey wore half and I wore...
80s Earrings: Lacquer Lightning
By Lori Ferraro So, I have a confession to make. I have always been, and forever will be . . . an earring junkie. Look at my current collection, which has recently been pared down: My collection has always required a “rack” “holder” or an “over-the-back-of-the-closet-door-vinyl-thingy” that I had back in the 80s. In the little pockets of the over-the-door-vinyl-thingy (I think that was the technical name for it) you could find a...
Gold Chains in the 80s
The 80s were all about glitter and shine; and what’s shinier than gold? It makes perfect sense, then, that gold chains would be all the rage in the mid-80s. Perhaps Spandau Ballet said it best in their 1983 hit, Gold: Gold Always believe in your soul You’ve got the power to know You’re indestructible Always believe in, because you are Gold This particular fashion trend transcended gender, and guys were just as likely to...
Twist a Beads!
By Julie Anderson We appreciated color coordination in the eighties: shoes, belts, jewelry, hair accessories, and eyeshadow all needed to be in the same color family. Hot pink and turquoise, hunter green and maroon, black and yellow: we liked to MATCH. An awesome way for an eighties girl to achieve full-on matchiness was with twist a bead (also called twister bead) necklaces. With a wardrobe of the inexpensive, colorful strands and...
Friendship Pins in the 1980s
by Jeffrey A. Garoutte If you were a girl during the 1980s, you probably were given friendship pins . . . and, more than likely, you created a multitude of your own and gave them away to all of your girlfriends as well. Friendship pins have been a long-standing, easy craft item for decades and, even today, there are web sites dedicated to nothing but friendship pins and the patterns that the tiny beads can make by placing several of...
Add-a-Bead Necklace
Eighties fashion for women included jewelry – lots of jewelry. One such trend for women and girls was the Add-a-Bead necklace. It is actually one of the nicer (or should we say enduringly tasteful) trends of the 80s and continues to a much lesser extent today. The Add-a-Bead Craze Add-a-Bead necklaces came in several different forms. They were most popular in the early 80s and were favored by the slightly preppier crowd, owing...
Swatch Watches
Swatch Watches to the Max Unless you were a complete loser, you had at least two or three Swatch watches when growing up in the 80s. If you were really cool, you had a dozen or more and you wore two or three at the same time. I mean, if one is totally rad, then two must be, like, tripendicular, right? Swatch launched its first watches in March of 1983; this Spring marks their 30th anniversary. The name, created by Nichole Lopez (so...
