Turn On Your Heartlight

Try as I might, I just can't think of the 80s as retro and vintage, or at least not in the cool sense of either of the words. Sure, I was all about plastic bangles in primary colors, knotted pearl necklaces and colorful baggy striped shirts, but that was in the 6th grade. When you're twelve, if everyone is wearing stirrup pants and Keds with no laces then you wear stirrup pants and Keds with no laces. Why in the world anyone in their 20s would choose to wear this hideous gear in the year 2010 is beyond me (although I will admit, I haven't seen stirrup pants yet. I guess that will be next year's trend...) Let's face it people. I'm just too old. Imagine my old lady shock when I ran across this video on YouTube a month or so ago where this 80s freelance fashion writer gives tips on finding the best 80s duds:



People, if you ever run across an NKOTB t-shirt at a thrift store, please promise me you will purchase it only to immediately burn it and therefore put it out of it's misery.

Still, the 80s thing can be funny sometimes. Like when I ran into this on Etsy earlier today:


This exact same E.T. stuffed animal sat on my bed for years (a pink canopy bed I might add. Ooh la la!) I remember all too well going to see the movie when it came out in '82 and being outraged when Amadeus won the academy award that year (in the meantime, however, I do kind of have to admit that Amadeus was actually a much better movie than E.T....) I was so proud that I didn't cry when everyone thought he was dead because I proved I was oh-so-tough. If I wanted to, I could take a permanent trip down memory lane by buying this little guy here for $35.


I even got a little bit jealous when I saw this. I was big into the Pound Puppies but I never had the Pound Puppy transistor radio! What better way to catch up on all my former light rock favorites than with this little pooch. For sale here for the amazingly low price of 15 bucks.

















Strawberry Shortcake was another favorite. I could buy her or Raspberry Tart's head at the shop Make It Cute. Still, the doll I would really want is Lemon Meringue. She was a much rarer doll to find. When I finally got her for my birthday, my sister soon ruined her forever by drawing glasses on her face with permanent marker. Thanks Renee....


But Make It Cute only has her clothes for sale (told you she was a hard doll to find.) By the way, I am talking to my sister again. That is, after years and years of therapy. ;)

So why is it that I wear vintage clothing and collect old things only from the 70s on down? I guess, when it comes down to it, I'm nostalgic for a time that was not really my own. Still, if someone on etsy were selling some old vinyl of Neil Diamond singing Heartlight, I would consider buying it. That is, for about half a second, before I finally came back to my senses. For now, I will have to go to good old YouTube to watch this lovely live version from 1988, where Neil rocks the Aquarius Theater:

Trends And Why I Hate Them: You Can't Touch This

Today, on the lovely playground on Chamisso Platz of all places, I saw a woman wearing them: Harem (a.k.a M.C. Hammer) pants. This apparently stylish woman was pushing her child on a swing with pants like this covering her modest behind:
Yes, it's true: This is a trend and this woman (so sorry to say I didn't have my camera or she would be SO dissed right now!) was not the first person I've seen wearing them. The good news: These pants remind me a lot of my two and a half year old daughter. The bad news: That is, when she has a gigantic LOAD in her diaper!!! People, people, people, what are you thinking?? Do you just want to have a "What the hell was I wearing back then?" snapshot for the family album? And don't give me that "But they are so comfortable" excuse. So are paper bags, but as far as I've heard, no one is wearing them...

Granted, these pants are apparently striving for equality: whether fat or thin, curvy or androgynus, they are simply unflattering on everyone.

















As for the end of the world, forget about those four horses and the whore of Babylon or whatever else it is they wrote in Revelations. If this 80s revival goes so far that BIG HAIR actually comes back into fashion, then the world, as we know it, will surely have come to an end....

Half Fashion Police, Half Satre

I suppose there are many things you could say about my husband and I, but one of them is definitely not that we bore easily. We always find ways to entertain ourselves, new discoveries, objects of interest and so on. Case in point: Sometime yesterday Jasper said to me "Hey, I have a great idea. Why don't I pose in my grandmother's old glasses and you take pictures of me." And so we had a hilarious 12 picture posing, with breaks in between (his grandmother was nearly blind, so he had to take off the glasses between each shot to avoid getting a headache....) These are a few of my favorites, each with their own name.


This one I call "Satre, eat your heart out."


This one is known as "Good one, Eugene!"


These two are called "Yves, the slimy French exchange student." Can't you just imagine trying to dodge this guy at a party?

The funniest thing, however, is that in a few of them he actually ended up looking kind of hip.


But how can you look hip in your half-blind grandmother's glasses? Is it cool to be uncool? Unique to be ugly? Hip to be ironically unhip? Or maybe, just maybe, hipsters are sometimes just plain ridiculous. Case in point, the following picture:


Yes, a few weeks ago I actually saw a smug Berlin hipster in Friedrichain wearing these, that is, Keds without laces. No, people, no! Look, I realize I'm simply too old to get this whole "80s revival". Most of the stuff hipsters are wearing these days are exactly what I wore in the 6th grade and, no matter how hard you might try, you just can never find something you found cool in the 6th grade ever cool again. And besides, it's UG-ly. So please, my friends, throw out the bright plastic frame glasses. Burn those peg leg jeans. Send those knotted pearl necklaces and cable knit sweaters and keds without laces back to fashion hell where they belong. Trust me, someday soon you will thank me for it.