In 1982 a baby girl was born who in years to come would make her way through the world of vintage fashion with world domination on her mind. Yep, that was me! I have nothing but happy memories of my childhood in the 80s, so many cool toys, games, TV programmes, films and fashions!
It makes me laugh when I get customers in the shop who are genuinely shocked that 1980s clothing is vintage but I promise you it is! Vintage clothing is basically any clothing that's more than 25 years old...
I just had to do a bit of a round up of all my very favourite memories from the eighties, all these things played a part in making me who I am today! If you are in your 30s you are bound to fondly remember these as I do!
TV Shows
Kids TV in the 80s was BRILLIANT. I remember loads of shows I loved but there are a few that have an extra special place in my heart!
Wacaday with Timmy Mallet was a brilliantly bonkers part of TV-am (the 80s version of Daybreak) and was essentially just a man with a foam mallet getting kids to play word association and bashing them on the head if they hesitated, paused or passed. Genius.
Rainbow! Who didn't love Rainbow?! There was so much to love about this, Bungle the big cuddly bear, George the uber camp pink hippo, Zippy the hilarious puppet with a zipped mouth and of course Rod, Jane and Freddy! Not forgetting the title sequence and theme tune that made millions of kids up and down the country giddy as kippers.
The Shoe People - a cartoon about shoes in the back of a shoemakers shop who come to life and have a whole Shoe Town that they live in! This was soooo good, and probably one of the reasons why I am now obsessed with shoes! Margot the ballet shoes was of course my favourite. LOVED it.
I've saved the best til last here. Greenclaws was hands down my favourite ever TV show and I used to count down the minutes til it was on! Greenclaws was a friendly gardening monster who lived in a greenhouse with Owlma the owl and Iris used to come and visit. They always grew the coolest plants with teacups or chocolates or balloons or other random objects on them. It was epic!
Characters
You get attached to certain characters when you're a kid, I think sometimes for security. I always remember being scared that a vampire was going to appear in my bedroom (seriously, it haunted me for years) and could never get to sleep on my own. So my lovely Mum gave me a Walkman & headphones and every night I would snuggle down in bed with a story cassette. (NB for the younger audience this is the 80s version if an audio book!)
My favourite tapes to listen to were an Enid Blyton collection and a bunch of Care Bears stories. Oh how I loved those bears!
I was also a bit of a tomboy at primary school and as well as sniggering at the rudeness of Bart Simpson I also loved a bit of the filthy Garbage Pail Kids. They were vile.... but brilliant! Barfin' Barbara was deffo my fave!
Toys
I may at some point reveal photographic evidence of this, but when I was a child I was pretty much surgically attached to my Glo-Worm. For anyone that doesn't know, this was a soft toy with a cute worm face that's head lit up when you squeezed it. It was the bomb, honest.
Forget secret diaries ( I never got past 3 days of writing in one) it was all about Finders Keepers. Amazingly cool and girly toys with locks and a key to stow away your top secret valuable things. Like sweets and shells.
And last but certainly not least, there was Teddy Ruxpin. An adorable teddy bear with a cassette deck in his back - pop in the tape, press play and a story would be told. The best bit? His mouth moved too! In our house this feature was somewhat abused as my older brother put Michael Jackson's BAD album in the tape deck and suddenly we had the coolest karaoke bear in the world. Ever.
Clothes
There are many fashion moments of the 80s that I don't forgive my mother for, but the most memorable was the party dress she used to put me in ALL THE TIME! It had a tight white vest top and a huge turquoise polka dot ra-ra skirt. I had matching shoes, handbag and alice band of course. There are photographs of me in this hideous ensemble at various caravan parks up and down the country but we don't need to dig them out do we?...
There are lots of 80s fashion influences about these days that you might not even realise, infact if you look at this catalogue page from the mid 80s it wouldn't look that out of place in a modern magazine. The big hair, the retro glasses, the playsuits, the ankle socks...
I'm not sure I can say the same for this one though!
Did you grow up in the 80s or have kids back then? I would LOVE to hear about some of your memories and favourites. I could go on forever on this topic!
Drop me a comment...
Emma x
