80s Trivia – The 80s Fashion Edition

Few decades gave us as much fashion to choose from as the 80s.

From preppy to punk, style was everything and could involve wearing just about anything — from the hats we wore on our heads to the legwarmers we wrapped around our ankles.

80s fashion was busy and bright, fun and fierce, and like everything else in the 80s, it was larger than life.

What do you know about 80s fashion? Find out by taking this 80s trivia challenge.

Are you an 80s fashion maven or an 80s fashion failure? Answer each of the questions below, then scroll down to check your answers.

80s Trivia

1. 80s fashion was:

A. Big

B. Colorful

C. Busy

D. All of the above

2.True or False:

Dancewear became popular as streetwear during the 80s

3. 80s hair (and especially the bangs) was always worn:

A. Slicked back

B. Loose and messy

C. Big with lots of hairspray

D. Short and cropped

4. In the 80s, it was popular to:

A. Keep it simple – very few accessories and hardly any jewelry

B. Dress up your wardrobe with tons and tons of 80s accessories

C. Wear nice, classy jewelry

D. Put your jeans on inside out

5. One pair of 80s shoes made our feet stink and kept breaking:

A. Pumps

B. Thigh-high boots

C. Jelly shoes

D. Keds

6. To get your 80s hair out of your face, you might opt for:

A. Shaving it all off

B. A side ponytail

C. Braids

D. French twist

7. Celebrities have always started fashion trends. In the 80s:

A. Tom Cruise made Ray-Bans popular

B. Madonna made hoop skirts popular

C. Prince made baseball caps popular

D. Molly Ringwald made t-shirts popular

8. True or False:

In the 80s, accessories like hats and gloves were forbidden!

9. Popular 80s fashion trends included:

A. T-shirts worn under spaghetti-strapped sundresses

B. Oversized shirts

C. Bell bottoms

D. Floor-length skirts

10. Who was an 80s fashion icon?

A. Coco Chanel

B. Madonna

C. Margaret Thatcher

D. Ronald Reagan

80s Fashion Trivia Answers

1. (D) 2. (True) 3. (C) 4. (B) 5. (C) 6. (B) 7. (A) 8. (False) 9. (B) 10. (B)

80s Shoes We Hated to Wear: Jelly Shoes

They were a totally cute 80s fashion, but they made your feet sweaty and smelly. The plastic broke easily, and that meant you were always begging your mom to take you to the store to get a new pair. Yeah, they came in lots of colors and a few different styles. But out of all the trendy 80s shoes, we hated wearing jelly shoes the most — even if we did go through a gazillion pairs of them.

Stinky Plastic 80s Fashion

Why would anyone want to stick their bare feet into plastic shoes? Okay, so some people may have worn them with socks, which was fashionably questionable (at best), but what did we think was so stylish about stinky feet? And believe me, no 80s fashion smelled worse (except maybe Aqua Net hairspray). I remember sitting around the house, wondering what’s that foul odor? — only to discover it was coming from my own jelly shoes! It was totally disgusting!

But 80s Shoes Had to Be Cute

But they were soooo cute! And when it comes to fashion, it’s all about aesthetics. They make your feet smell? So what? They look awesome! Women have been wearing uncomfortable shoes for decades… centuries even, and 80s shoes were no different.

All of my jelly shoes were made mostly out of soft plastic, but the back piece was hard and it used to give me blisters — blisters that hurt! The plastic along the sides of the shoes was always breaking. Did I mention they were cheap? You could get a pair for under five dollars, which was a good thing since I always had to replace mine.

But on the playground, jelly shoes ruled. I remember all too well how much all the girls thought jelly shoes were the greatest 80s fashion ever. We flaunted them, and for about a season, we gave them top honor among all our other 80s shoes. But alas, the love we had for our jelly shoes did not last (thank goodness).

Rest in Peace, Jelly Shoes

I’m sure all my old jelly shoes are in a landfill somewhere, stubbornly NOT decomposing. This is one 80s fashion that I’m glad has been laid to rest and one pair of 80s shoes that I hope never comes back into style.

80s Fashion: The 80s Hair Side Ponytail

80s fashion involved more than just clothes and shoes and accessories. You totally had to have the hair that topped off the outfit. Big hair. Bold hair.

80s hair had to be big. Heck, what wasn’t big in the 80s? We doused our locks with Aqua-Net until our hair was thick and sticky. But at least our hairstyle was securely fixed. No wind could knock down that 80s hair!

But we didn’t always have time to tease our hair. Some styles took hours to master and involved wrangling with styling mousse, gel, a hairdryer, a curling iron, a crimping iron, and that unwieldy can of Aqua-Net.

When you had to run out the door, a ponytail was your only option. But it was the 80s, so if you couldn’t find your banana clip, you probably went with a side ponytail.

Quirky 80s Fashion

In the 80s, we just had to be different. We had to be bold. Everything was an overstatement. Our 80s fashion was no exception and neither was our 80s hair.

Hairstyles come and go, and in the 80s, styles came and went pretty quickly. The most popular 80s fashion, the one you totally HAD to have, was one you wouldn’t be caught dead in six months later.

It was like – one day you had to have pair of jelly shoes to be cool. Anyone who was anyone had a pair (or twenty pairs) of jelly shoes. But just a few months later, anyone caught wearing a pair of jelly shoes would be ostracised. All 80s fashion was like that, especially 80s hair.

80s Hair

80s hair styles went in and out. You changed your hair about as often as you changed your underwear, so like, every day basically.

One day it was feathered, the next day it was teased up to the sky. A week later, you slicked it back, and a month after that you pulled it up into a ponytail.

If it was the 80s, maybe you secured your ponytail with a scrunchy or a banana clip. More likely, you swept it up into a side ponytail.

The Side Ponytail

Ponytails have always been popular. They’re fast and easy. They get annoying strands of hair out of your face and neatly pulled back where they’re out of your way.

Anyone with hair past the chin can appreciate a simple ponytial. But you had to be a child of the 80s to appreciate the side ponytail.

80s hair came in many different styles and colors. The side ponytail could be teased up into a puff of curls, or it could hang loose. You could secure it with an old-fashioned rubber band, a scrunchy, or even a banana clip (more on those later).

It was all a part of 80s fashion – the shoes, the clothes, the accessories, and the hair. The side ponytail was a fast fix that kept your style current (trendy) and marked you as an 80s fashion victim.

80s hair and 80s fashion went through many fads and phases throughout the decade. The side ponytail was just one popular hairstyle. But there were many others. And we’ll totally be talking about those in future articles.

80s Clothing and Oversized Shirts

The knock at the dressing room door couldn’t have come at a better time. I was standing with my back to the mirror, my head impossibly twisted so I could see how the shirt fit from the back.

It definitely was not covering my derriere. Not good.

“Can I get you anything in a different size, Miss?” the salesperson asked.

“Yes, I’ll take the red blouse in size large, and the gold in extra-large. Thanks.” The woman paused, and I could almost hear her wondering what a petite girl like me wanted with such big sizes. She probably opened her mouth to protest, but realizing that she wouldn’t win over a stubborn, fashion-sensitive teen, she hurried off to get me the sizes I had requested.

Moments later, I pulled on the gold blouse, buttoning it up halfway. Over that, I put on the red blouse, making sure that plenty of the gold blouse was peeking out from underneath. With my black ribbed tank showing at the neckline, the outfit had pizazz. I dug through my own discarded pile of 80s clothing and popped my black felt fedora onto my head and then wrapped my three-inch belt around my waist, fastening it just at my hipline.

Finally, I turned again to check my rear end. The bottom hem of the gold blouse came to the bottom of my bottom. Perfect. I was an 80s fashion icon.

80s Fashion was Top-Heavy

The 80s fashion silhouette was top-heavy. T-shirts, blouses, sweaters, and sweatshirts had to be three sizes too big so they would hang loose and low. They were often cinched with fat belts or doubled wrap-around belts, emphasizing the hips and lower waist.

And if that didn’t make our torso grand enough, we were also shoulder-pad happy. Almost all 80s clothing had shoulder pads sewn in, and if you were unlucky enough to fall in love with a top that was missing this essential 80s fashion staple, you could always buy a pair and sew them in yourself. Those shoulder pads made your upper half even heftier.

For emphasis, you wore the tightest pants you could find, making your bottom half appear skinny while your top half was enormous, swimming in yards of fabric. Oh, and it all had to be layered.

80s Clothing Supersized

It’s amazing that years later, we were buying the tiniest shirts we could find and doing everything under the sun to make sure our midriffs were on display. Throughout most of the 80s, you really covered up as much as possible.

Once Madonna made a splash in 80s fashion, the hemlines on our tops started moving up, drastically altering the trendiest styles in 80s clothing. But that didn’t mean the shirts had to be tight-fitting. We still wore them loose. Oh yes, you could still by an extra-large tee and simply hack off the bottom half with a pair of scissors.

T-shirts had to cover your buns, blouses grazed your thighs, and sweatshirts draped around your knees. Oversized shirts were an 80s fashion staple, essential pieces for a worthwhile, stylish wardrobe packed with big and bold 80s clothing.

Leg Warmers – The 80s Fashion Staple

We wore them with jeans. We wore them with mini-skirts. We totally wore them with leotards. Leg warmers were the ultimate in 80s fashion.

As a kid growing up in the 80s, I wore my leg warmers out.

Leg warmers could be found just about anywhere. They were wearing them on TV, in the movies, and even in schoolyards.

You Wanted Leg Warmers

You wanted as many pairs of leg warmers as possible. If you were lucky, you had a pair for every outfit. Or at least each pair of shoes. They rounded out your awesome big collection of essential 80s accessories because they went with just about everything.

You could wear them to school, to a friend’s house, out on the town. And of course, you could totally wear them to aerobics class. Oh yes, aerobics were big in the 80s. Everyone was trying to be a Solid Gold dancer and you couldn’t do that without a solid collection of leg warmers and some wicked awesome dance moves.

The funny thing was that leg warmers weren’t that easy to find, even though they were like the most popular of all 80s accessories. You really had to search if you wanted to build up a tubular collection of leg warmers. Sure, you could get them at dance wear shops, but those ones were usually plain and boring. You could find wilder patterns and colors of leg warmers at departments stores.

80s Fashion and the Decade of Dance

If there was one running theme in 80s fashion, it was BIG. Everything was oversized and bold. If there was a second theme, it was dance. The 80s sparked a whole new dance craze that leaked into 80s fashion, and the 80s accessories were no exception.

We used to wear leotards, like, every day. Yes, you pulled your jeans on right over your leotards and then pulled your leg warmers on over your jeans. Other 80s accessories inspired by dance wear were the off-the-shoulder cutoff sweatshirt and the sweatbands that we wore as stylish headbands, ala Olivia Newton John’s song and music video, “Physical.”

But when it came to the marriage of dance and fashion, not one of the 80s accessories could beat out leg warmers.

80s Accessories and Leg Warmers Layered

Most 80s accessories that came from dance style were altered for everyday wear. You didn’t actually wear a sweatband on your head. No. You used a ribbon or a piece of scrap material. I used to cut up old t-shirts. Even the leotards you wore out and about weren’t the same ones you actually wore to dance class.

But not leg warmers. You bought them and wore them just as they were. And you layered them too.

Layering was HUGE in the 80s. We layered shirts, tights, pants, and socks. We would’ve layered shoes if we could’ve found a way to do it. Leg warmers were totally perfect for layering, especially with some great socks and two different colored sneakers.

Love That 80s Fashion

We slid them on over our pants and under our skirts. Sometimes we tucked them into our socks. Other times, we rolled them down over our boots. Leg warmers were an 80s fashion staple. And they make little comebacks every now and then.

Look around and you’ll occasionally see someone rocking leg warmers. Just go to any dance studio and you’ll find them. Lately, they’ve been popping up as a retro trend.

But to those of us who grew up in the most bodacious decade ever, leg warmers will always belong to 80s fashion.

80s Fashion

80s fashion is hailed for being big, bold, and bright. Big hair, bold shoulder pads, and a collection of brightly colored accessories to tie it all together were essential during the 80s. Fashion closely followed music, segmenting into niches that were diverse and catered to various sub-cultures.

Black was back, prints were on everything including pants and shoes, and hair and makeup were thick and wild. The fashionable silhouette was top-heavy – big, baggy shirts with tapered jeans. Leather and lace came together and colors took on a strangely bright, luminescent hue when neon accessories became a raging fad.

80s fashion was wild and over the top but it was accessible. It could be trendy or alternative, subtle or outrageous, and it was a lot of fun for anyone with a penchant for style.

80s Fashion Subcultures

Dance Wear & Breakdancing - If the 80s had a single theme, it would probably be dance. Traditional dancewear made its way into popular 80s fashion when girls started wearing legwarmers, leotards, and thanks to the movie Flashdance, ripped sweatshirts that hung off one shoulder. This look, heavily accessorized, was popular among Valley Girls. When breakdancing became popular, it came with its own fashion items including windbreakers, parachute pants, bandana accessories and wrist- or head-bands and the ever-present hip-hop sneaker (preferably ADIDAS).

Preppy - The preppy look borrowed heavily from TV show Miami Vice for light-colored suits with bright tees underneath and ultra-skinny ties. Other prep 80s fashion items included Alligator (golf) shirts, Bermuda shorts, and upper crust loafers.

New Romantic - It was punk gone soft. The New Romantic style, which eventually gave rise to gothic fashion, featured lots of black and dark clothing with loose, flowing fabrics. Puffy sleeves and designs that echoed pirates eventually became New Romantic staples. For the ladies, cinched waists, corsets, and bustiers gave a romantic, old-fashioned flair. Think Marie Antoinette meets Sid Vicious.

Designers and Name Brands

Fashion designers got lucky in the 80s when name brand designers became a symbol of wealth and posterity. Guess, Calvin Klein, and Esprit were popular among the upper-middle class. Suddenly, the name on your sneaker said something about your identity as a member of society. ADIDAS or Rebok? Converse or Keds?

80s Fashion Accessories

During the 80s, accessories were a staple of any fashionable ensemble. Jewelry was bulky and chunky and the more the better. Both guys and girls sported pierced earrings. They were huge, they dangled, and lots were worn at once. Layers of necklaces, faux pearls and big cross pendants were made popular by pop star Madonna, who was a fashion icon in her own right. Hats and gloves also found themselves back in mainstream fashion. Fedora hats were wildly popular. Michael Jackson made wearing one glove seem like a cool idea and Madonna made fingerless lace gloves hip, sexy, and stylish. Belts were as big as everything else, and the ladies wore them hung loosely around their hips to cinch huge, baggy tees and blouses.

80s fashion will forever be remembered as the decade of decadence. More! Bigger! Brighter! It was bold and bodacious, loud and lacy. In the 80s, fashion became an integral part of each celebrity’s image and celebrities themselves became major trendsetters. It was a way to express one’s identity. And it still is.