When and Why Did the 80s Become Retro?

Why do I feel 'insulted' when people refer to the 80s as retro? Really, I take it as a personal offense. Perhaps it's the teenager in me who remembers feeling that way about my parents' 1950s. It all seemed so corny, old and outdated to me, while to them it rang of happy carefree times, when they were youthful and dreaming. 

Of course there were elements of that time that were cool. I went through a phase after a visit to our local flea market poster vendor where I had framed posters of James Dean looking down at me or off into the distance in my shoebox sized bedroom. I hadn't seen any of the movies but he possessed a rugged sort of timeless handsome appeal that broke through the invisible wall of decades past. 

When we saw "Grease" on broadway and then on the screen in the late 70s and I was introduced to Danny Zuko, part of me dreamt of being Sandra and secret more daring part of my being wanted to break out and belt out as Rizzo.

My mom always got a faraway look in her eyes when she spoke of her time growing up in the 40s and 50s. She'd go off into the theater of her mind and replay times of promise and perhaps different roads that she may have taken. While she enjoyed her life in the 60s through her passing in 2002, she always got all Pollyanna on me when conversation drifted to her years growing up and early adult life. 

Life was always hard for my dad. He experienced tremendous deprivation and loss through the years and for him in many ways the glass only began to become half full in 1958 when they met. His fondest memories were all around baseball and his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers and subsequently the Mets when the boys of Brooklyn went west. When he shared stories of having his younger brother climb out to the rooftop of their apartment building to adjust the television antenna while he served as the foreman inside shouting out when the reception was just right, there was always a twinkle in his eye.

                                                                                   

"Did you wear bellbottoms?" my daughter asks while plowing through a rack of denim in Gap (formerly known as "The Gap" as dorky, outdated me continues to call it). "Sure, I wore them. They were nice." "Weren't they hard to walk in?" my fashion puzzled offspring queries. "Well, no, not really. You'd have to wear the right shoes with them" Mama defensively replies. "Oh you mean like cowboy boots?" "No, not boots so much as platform shoes." My mind drifts off to my first pair of buffalo shoes. Light tan saddle leather with suede covered platform bottoms, with sort of a pork like smell to them when you'd first buy them. They came in several heights and being about six inches taller than all the boys and most of the girls at that time I opted for the lowest level that was enough of a platform to qualify without being high enough to add further to my constant slouching stance. My thought bubble bursts and I'm back to the reality that in 2K8 Gap or "The Gap" for that matter doesn't stock jeans that can make this 80s girl happy. 

My memories of the 80s are of excitement and dreams, new experience and anticipation. While my children describe 80s "big hair" with disdain, about how "weird" it looked, especially the big perms, I wax poetic about hair gel and Rave hair spray super unleaded stiff hold.

to be continued...