Authors Page Laura Downey 17/03/1995 I am currently studying Fashion and Clothing at Belfast Metropolitan College. I am on my first year of a national diploma. I chose the 1980‟s as my decade because I find that pe-riod very interesting, particularly the style and music icons of that time.

Political/ Historical Events

Ethiopia witnessed widespread famine in the mid-1980s.

Live Aid concert in 1985.

Iran-Iraq war, the ongoing Soviet-Afghan War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the Bombing of Libya in 1986, and the First Intifada in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Murder of John Lennon in New York City

Significant political reforms occurred in a number of com-munist countries in eastern Europe as the populations of these countries grew increasingly hostile.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, film and television actor.

Popular Culture

George Michael-first found success after forming the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981.

The Bangles - American all-female band that originated in the early 1980s, scoring several hit singles during the decade.

Rod Stewart - In January 1985, he performed at the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro before an esti-mated audience of over 100,000. In 1988, he returned with Out Of Order, produced by Duran Duran's Andy Tay-lor.

Cyndi Lauper– Known best for her son „Girls just wanna have fun‟. The release of the single was accompanied by a quirky music video shot in the summer of 1983.

Olivia Newton john - Her career soared after starring in the film/musical, Grease. A sequel of it was made in 1982.

Madonna - Throughout 1980-1989 many of her songs hit number one on the record charts, including "Like a Vir-gin", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer", and "Vogue".

Art Movements

In 1981 in Paris, art critique Bernard Lamarche-Vadel pre-sented the works of a group of young painters in an exhibit called “Finir en Beauté”.

Ben, the painter, identified the event as the birth of a new movement, which he named “Free Figuration”. The new style is best described as spontaneously figurative. It is brightly colored, raw, and draws its inspiration from the popular cul-ture, rock music, comics, etc.

In the United States, during that same period, graffiti art can be seen as its counterpart. These artists mostly paint on un-stretched, unframed canvasses, or they paint directly on sheets, cardboard, in the back of billboards they picked up in the streets or in the subway.

One famous example of the Free Figuration style, can be seen in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

In the early 1980s, the first Art Galleries who started to show graffiti artists to the public were Fashion Moda in Bronx and Now Gallery in East Village, Manhattan.

Design Movements The 1980′s period saw:

Factory Dome lights Warehouse or shop shelving Metal as the favoured material Perforated metal Wire reinforced glass tables Steel reinforcing mesh Tractor seat stools

This period of furniture design continued to focus on the industrial sector. Designs were predominately commis-sioned for retail shopping, hospitals, restaurants, schools and hotels.

The favoured materials were metal, perforated metal be-came popular along with steel reinforcing mesh.

Because of their quality, strong materials and methods of manufacture, they are very functional, easy to clean and maintain. Their design is usually minimal.

Economic Factors

The 1980‟s saw great social, economic, and general change as wealth and production migrated to newly industrializing economies.

Developing countries across the world faced economic and social difficulties as they suffered from multiple debt crises in the 1980s, requiring many of these countries to apply for fi-nancial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

As economic liberalization increased in the developed world, multiple multinational corporations associated with the manufacturing industry relocated into Thailand, Mexico, China and West Germany were the most notable developed countries that continued to enjoy rapid economic growth.

Fashion Icon Madonna

Madonna had many looks during the 80‟s. Her ability to perpetually re-style herself has certainly contributed to the longevity of her career.

Madonna may be one of the first pioneers of the messy chic look of the 80‟s. She started the layered look, with shirts and coats and more shirts. A lace shirt was often worn over another shirt. Or a sweatshirt with an oversized neck or cut off sleeves was worn over a smaller shirt or bra.

Everyday Madonna clothing of the 80‟s included a skirt worn over tight, short pants. Sometimes they were pat-terned, other times they were lacy.

Technology

Arcade games and video games had been grow-ing in popularity since the late 1970s, and by 1982 were a major industry. But a variety of factors, in-cluding a glut of low-quality games and the rise of home computers, caused a tremendous crash in late 1983.

For the next three years, the video game market practically ceased to exist in the US. But in the second half of the decade, it would be revived by Nintendo in 1983.

In the early 1980s various companies began sell-ing compact, modestly priced synthesizers to the public. This, along with the development of Musi-cal Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), made it easier to integrate and synchronize synthesizers and other electronic instruments for use in musical composition.

Fashion Technology

In 1980 Smart fabrics were first invented. They are fab-rics that can change or react automatically to their sur-roundings.

SHIMA SEIKI develops the SDS-1000 Shimatronic De-sign in 198.

SHIMA SEIKI improves the seamless glove knitting ma-chine through computerization, successfully allowing the production of gloves in a single process on its SFG series in 1982.

SHIMA SEIKI develops the computerized flat knitting ma-chine, THE SET

SHIMA SEIKI develops the DSCS digital stitch control system in 1985.

SHIMA SEIKI develops the computerized flat knitting ma-chine, The SEK.

Retail—The High Street

The High street in the 1980‟s included Doc Martens shoes which were worn by both sexes. Sometimes Doc. Martens were paired with mini skirts or Laura Ashley- style dresses.

Corsets were often worn by girls in the 80‟s.The clothes worn in the 80s depicted people who were trying to find themselves. They looked for ways to express their creativity and individuality.

The retail shops sold layered items of clothing. Some 80‟s style clothing are back on the shelves now!

Metallic and luminous colours were common and tight clothing was very in trend.

Colour Pallets

These are the colour pallets used during the dec-ade of 1980‟s. Luminous colours were extremely popular at this time.

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