80's Party 2

The 1980s, also known as "the Nineteen Eighties" or abbreviated as "The Eighties" or "the '80s", was a decade that began on January 1, 1980 and ended on December 31, 1989. This was the ninth decade of the 20th century.

The time period saw great social, economic, and general change as wealth and production migrated to newly industrializing economies. As economic liberalization increased in the developed world, multiple multinational corporations associated with the manufacturing industry relocated into Thailand, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. Japan and West Germany are the most notable developed countries that continued to enjoy rapid economic growth during the decade while other developed nations, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States, re-adopted laissez-faire economic policies.

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 financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Ethiopia witnessed widespread famine in the mid-1980s during the corrupt rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam, resulting in the country having to depend on foreign aid to provide food to its population and worldwide efforts to address and raise money to help Ethiopians, such as the famous Live Aid concert in 1985.

The fall of the Berlin Wall

The reforms in the Soviet Union also had its effects on the other communist countries, especially in Poland and Hungary. On August 23, 1989 Hungary opened the iron curtain to Austria. Months before East German tourists used their chance to escape to Austria from Hungary  and in September 1989 more than 13 000 East German escaped via Hungary within three days. It was the first mass exodus of East Germans after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Mass demonstrations against the government and the system in East Germany begun at the end of September and took until November 1989. 
Erich Honecker, East Germany's head of state, had to resign on October 18, 1989.

The new governement prepared a new law to lift the travel restrictions for East German citizen.

At 06.53 pm on November 9, 1989 a member of the new East German government, Günter Schabowski, was asked at a press conference when the new East German travel law comes into force. He answered:     "Well, as far as I can see, ... straightaway, immediately."

Thousands of East Berliners  went to the border crossings. At Bornholmer Strasse the people demanded to open the border and at 10.30 pm the border was opened there. That moment meant the end of the Berlin Wall.

The Wall in its entirety was not torn down immediately. Starting that evening and in the days and weeks that followed, people came to the wall with sledgehammers or otherwise hammers and chisels to chip off souvenirs, demolishing lengthy parts of it in the process and creating several unofficial border crossings. These people were nicknamed "Mauerspechte" (wall woodpeckers).

Some 80s Fashion, Trends and Fads.

For some, the 80s were a great time. The creation of MTV revolutionized fashion, the music industry and even how they watched TV. For others, it was nothing but bad hair, worse clothing and music that often had more to do with machines than talent. 

 

The clothes worn in the 80s depicted people who were trying to find themselves. They looked for ways to express their creativity and individuality. Men wore heavy make up and grew long hair. Women wore short hair and layers of clothing. Both sexes were looking for an identity.  

In the 1970s, the silhouette of fashion tended to be characterized by close fitting clothes on top with wider, looser clothes on the bottom. This trend completely reversed itself in the early 1980s as both men and women began to wear looser shirts and tight, close-fitting trousers.

In 1984, the American tv series, Miami Vice gave the casual style of wearing t-shirts under expensive suit jackets. Many young to middle aged men eagerly adopted the “Miami Vice Look” with the inclusion of broad shoulder pads to jackets and the unshaven “designer stubble” look, made famous by Don Johnson (left on the picture).

 Men also started wearing Hawaiian shirts with sports jackets and growing mustaches again thanks to Tom Selleck in the series Magnum, P.I.  Gucci loafers also became fashionable as casual, but expensive, footwear after being seen worn by Tom Selleck in a cologne advertisement.

Medium-length hair was common for men, while the longer haircuts of the 1970s went out of fashion. However, very long hair for men became fashionable in the late 1980s due to the influence of Heavy Metal music.

Brand names became increasingly important in this decade, making Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein household names, among others.

After the release of her single "Like a Virgin" in late 1984, Madonna became a fashion icon for many young women around the world who copied her "street urchin" look with short skirts worn over leggings, brassieres worn as outer clothing, untidy hair, crucifix jewellery, and fishnet gloves.

The 1983 movie Flashdance made ripped sweatshirts popular. The television shows Dallas and, in particular, Dynasty also had a similar impact, especially in the area of the increasingly oversized shoulder pads.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the New Romantic music and fashion movement exerted a strong influence over the clothing worn by both males and females in the early years of the decade.

80s fashion styles for men often included such things as acid washed jeans, parachute pants, Reebok high tops,  Converse hightops(chucks), Cotler pants, kamikaze shirts (These shirts allowed you to zip off the sleeves to show off your arms) and jean jackets.

Members Only Jacket

Chances are, if you were into 80s fashion, you had a Members Only Jacket. These jackets were very popular in the 80s. They were first introduced in 1981 and came in a variety of colors. In the 80s, you either had a Members Only jacket or you were a complete and total fashion outcast.

Members Only is a brand of clothing that became popular in the 1980s with the Members Only jacket. The brand was created in 1975 and introduced to American markets in 1979 by Europe Craft Imports (later acquired in 1987 by the Marcade Group, which was renamed Aris Industries in 1993).

Advertising Tagline: "When you put it on, something happens."  This tagline was so great that it got co-opted in the early 1990s and used by various condom makers.

Parachute pants

What are parachute pants? Back in the early 1980s, parachute pants were tight, shiny pants made of synthetic material--the stuff used to make parachutes. These pants were originally created for break dancers who needed pants that could stand up to the abuse of break dancing. They typically featured multiple zippers to add to the edgy feel. While women sometimes wore parachute pants during the 80s , they were most often worn by men. 

Parachute pants are a style of trousers characterised by the use of nylon, especially ripstop nylon. In the original loose-fitting, extraneously zippered style of the late 70s/early 80s, "parachute" referred to the pants' synthetic nylon material. In the later 80s, "parachute" may have referred to the extreme bagginess of the pant. They are typically worn as menswear and are often brightly colored. Parachute pants became a fad in US culture in the 1980s as part of an increased cultural appropriation of breakdancing. Parachute pants played a pivotal role in the 1980s in fashion.

Ray-Ban Wayfarer Sunglasses

Ray-Ban Wayfarers were by far the most popular sunglasses worn in the 80s. Originally designed in the 1950s, the Wayfarer had declined in popularity by the late 70s. That all changed in 1983 when Tom Cruise wore them for his break out movie role in the film Risky Business. Demand for the glasses took off with hundreds of thousands being sold immediately after the release of the movie. The glasses could be seen on many of the top celebrities of the 80s, including Michael Jackson, Don Johnson, and Madonna.

Baby On Board Signs

The little yellow sign that looked like a yellow warning sign.

The original signs were the brainchild of Michael Lerner, who created the Safety 1st company with the idea of marketing the signs to parents who were concerned at the high level of car crashes in the US. And, no, the idea wasn't inspired by an actual crash, as the ol' urban legend tells us. No, Lerner just happened to see similar signs on a trip through Europe.

Maybe it was just karma then that Lerner's 'invention' became such an object of so much ridicule that the original effect was lost pretty quickly. Instead of drivers giving space behind a car with a 'Baby on Board' sign, suddenly they were speeding up to see if it was actually a joke sign, and if so, see what it said.

The original signs, which had been all the rage in the fall and winter of 1984 were suddenly 'signa-non-grata' less than two years later, replaced with gems like 'Mother-in-Law in Trunk', 'Alien on Board', and the awesome 'Nobody on Board'.

Boom Boxes

The "ghetto blaster." The portable radio, with two speakers as a minimum, the heavier and the bigger, the better.

The first Boombox was developed by the inventor of the C-Cassette, Philips of the Netherlands. Their first 'Radiorecorder' was released in 1969. The Philips innovation was the first time that radio broadcasts could be recorded onto C-Cassette tapes without cables or microphones that previous stand-alone cassette tape recorders needed. Early sound quality of tape recordings was poor but as the C-Cassette technology evolved, with stereo recording, Chromium tapes and noise reduction, soon HiFi quality devices become possible. Several European electronics brands such as Grundig also introduced similar devices.

The desire for louder and heavier bass led to bigger and heavier boxes; by mid-1980s some boomboxes had reached the size of a suitcase, the bigger and flashier the boombox the better; it became a status symbol among young urbanites which in turn called for increasingly extravagant boxes.

Rubik Cube

The toy that was a real pain in the butt to solve, unless you peeled the stickers or pulled it apart.

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via German businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year.

In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours (traditionally white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow). A pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to consisting of one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of stickers, not all of them by Rubik.

Although the Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, many speedcubers continue to practise it and other "twisty puzzles" and compete for the fastest times. Its international governing body, the World Cube Association, has organised competitions and kept the official world records since 2003.

Trivial Pursuit

The game that made people start memorizing useless crap in order to win. Probably one of the biggest crazes when it came out though.

Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which progress is determined by a player's ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions. The game was created in 1979 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, by Canadian Chris Haney, a photo editor for Montreal's The Gazette and Scott Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian. After finding pieces of their Scrabble game missing, they decided to create their own game. With the help of John Haney and Ed Werner, they completed development of the game, which was released in 1982.

In North America, the game's popularity peaked in 1984, a year in which over 20 million games were sold.

source: several