Hope You Still Love ’80s and ’90s Fashion

By Eric Wilson
May 22, 2018 @ 9:00 am
Photos: Getty Images

Generation X called. They want their style back.

References to the ’80s and ’90s, from high glam and big hair to shoulder pads and mom jeans, were a huge trend in the fall collections. And history is repeating itself not only on the runways but everywhere you look. Roseanne Barr and Murphy Brown are on TV again, Angels in America has returned to Broadway, and Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg’s video-game-adventure film set in 2045, featured more throwbacks than a Thursday on Instagram.

This raises the question, Why?

“After a long period of minimalism, people want to have a lot more fun with fashion now,” answers designer Alexandre Vauthier. “The ’80s were such extraordinary years of excess spirit, over-the-top fun, and carefree indulgence.”

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Perhaps creative people are romanticizing the era because it was the final moment of relative disconnectivity, before smartphones and social media made it impossible not to notice the whole world going to pot. Or perhaps designers, fearing charges of cultural appropriation if they take ideas from, say, Africa or Asia, have no safe place to turn to these days except the past.

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Matthew Adams Dolan, a bright new talent, has cited ’80s preppies and ’90s activewear ads as catalysts for his designs, which are recontextualized with unusual proportions and unconventional model castings. “In the era of Reaganism, that Waspy aesthetic was so linked to the visual codes of affluence and elitism,” he says. “Referencing the past, and disrupting it, is a comment on what it means to be an American now, especially in this political climate.”

One more reason might just be wishful thinking, as the ’90s also marked the dawn of the modern luxury boom, a sharp contrast with the strangled retail climate of today. Of course, some things are better left in the past. You might cringe to learn that scrunchies are having a renaissance or that Levi’s has named recent styles of jeans after Brenda Walsh and Donna Martin, characters on Beverly Hills, 90210.

“Like many big designers of this generation, I too grew up in the ’80s,” says Roopal Patel, the fashion director of Saks Fifth Avenue. “Some things are so cool, and some things are like, Ewww.”

For more stories like this, pick up the June issue of InStyle, on newsstands and for digital download now.

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  Skinny Shades

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The bold Paris-in-the-’80s look of Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler is having a revival thanks in part to the overall disco trend. At his January couture show Alexandre Vauthier teamed up with Alain Mikli on eyewear inspired by Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton.

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Acid Reign

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Not since Beverly Hills, 90210 has denim been put through the wringer like this. With a blend of extreme styles of the ’50s and ’80s, Miu Miu’s latest look seems tailor-made for the Peach Pit.

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Haute Homage

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Linebacker shoulders, jewel tones, pinched waists, fussy bows, and fab hats—Marc Jacobs has them all in his ode to ’80s exuberance. It seems fitting to revisit the power suit in the context of today’s Time’s Up movement.

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Totes!

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You’ve surely heard about the return of ’80s staples like big logos and dad sneakers. Now there’s a dad-sneaker logo thanks to a Fendi bag design emblazoned with the artist Hey Reilly’s witty take on the Fila logo.

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Neo’s Goth

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A dystopian future in which machines control humans’ perceptions of reality … Who’d ever believe that? Prepare for a black maxi reboot as designers mine the dark underworld of modern corporate America for a look that’s one part The Matrix and one part McKinsey & Co.

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Back to School

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As if! With similar bright yellow plaids appearing in collections from Michael Kors, Nicopanda, Versace, and, last spring, Balenciaga, it’s hard to escape the allusions to Clueless’s Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone), the ultimate fashion icon of ’90s cinema, not to mention all the tartan punks who preceded her.

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Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

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Tom Ford makes no secret of his love of a bygone L.A. aesthetic. The luxe athleisure of today has nothing on the packaged glitz of Rodeo Drive in its heyday, epitomized by retail showman Fred Hayman and his Giorgio Beverly Hills boutique.

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