that 1985 paint splatter/Keith Haring squiggle-art/polka dot/loud color street style

the thing of pop art, abstract expressionism, geometric conceptual art, hip-hop, and strawberry switchblade.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/bc/29/42/bc2942ca8d8d762605e77d32860ceff6.jpg

really stretches from '83 to '93 with the epicenter being around '85 to '86

not quite the same but:

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130620181515/lyricwiki/images/2/29/Heart_-_Heart.jpg

yes to the reds and blues but that's a little more dress barn than what i'm talking about

James Rizzi, who also did the Tom Tom Club artwork:

http://www.galerie-am-dom.de/prdimages/James-Rizzi-_Day-or-night-my-city-is-bright.jpg

yes!

i sorta remember "painter chic" being stylish in nyc in this era, like a street version of what people imagined those artists gentrifying soho would wear.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Cameo_Single_Life.jpg

here's what i'm talking about:

http://www.pinterest.com/terrebella/1980s-~-painter-girl/

in some ways the 80s were great - i wish i'd been more aware of this stuff at the time, but i was young and an introvert and reading comic books and paying little attention to the world around me

i was young and an introvert then too but i was like YESSSSS to everything that was going on in art and fashion and music. what an incredible time.

http://www.writerscentre.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Sweet-and-Sour-soundtrack.jpg

http://bestofthe80s.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/tumblr_lhi8wsvrzm1qhaitco1_500.jpg

kinda wish more artists were willing to be that bold/garish with album covers now

YIKES

i don't want to turn this into a youtube thread but i feel like the peter max video for missing persons' "surrender your heart" may work here.

(I mean, I was aware of Madonna, C. Lauper, Culture Club, and some other pop acts but I didn't buy LPs or go to museums or see movies much so a lot of what's on this thread was somehow lost on me for a while. Also: didn't know people with this fashion sense.)

https://36.media.tumblr.com/aa3763bfda684e573fd03bbb9f7e8d97/tumblr_ne6hq7rJH71troiavo4_500.jpg

Aus seemed to have loads of this (the hot pink/yellow, the dots and squiggles) on album artworks and band promo/fashion 83-86. Dolly magazine had a lot of that asthetic too. I was 13 so yanno, fluro pink rolled socks and fishnets and polkadots all round!

i cringe whenever people are like "lol those wacky '80s; what were we thinking??" because while there definitely is some regrettable stuff from that decade, a lot of the visuals were consistent with prior decades of design movements and contemporaneous strains of influence from all over art/graphics/furniture/music/etc and there was a definite thought process behind much of it. none of this existed in a vacuum.

I just flashed on this awesome girl in elementary school who work different colored Chucks AND different colored socks, that shit blew my mind

I wonder if the denigration of these aesthetics has to do with how they influenced popular art and music videos at the time - if it's in part because they were somehow much more public than previous (or subsequent) movements.

i had chuck hi-tops that were grey on the outside and folded over to reveal a pink underside.

https://ourselvestogether.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/strawberry-switchblade-smash-hits-dece-343479.jpg

So coveted this look at 14.

looking back, i look at '70s fiorucci ads with the big day-glo colors and i'm like "ah, of course. it was all bubbling up."

And that bloody Fido Dido!

Oh and well, Bennetton of course.

We've seen the acceptable eighties fashion return -- boat shoes, tight jeans, polos, wedge haircuts -- but not the threads worn by, say, thirtysomething L.A. scenesters in 1986.

Nor much of the earlier new romantic fashion for that matter. Wither the velvet knickerbockers and big girls blouses?

http://houseofchapple.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/tlc-aint-too-proud-to-beg.jpg

kinda wish more artists were willing to be that bold/garish with album covers now

I think the speed with which consensus develops about something being horrible / eye-burning / etc in the age of the web works against people getting too splashy

http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/sites/default/files/2_anita_cobin_the_cloth_1000px.jpg

the late '80s and early '90s were cool because it was building on existing themes with the color explosion of like madchester and the woodstock anniversary and afrocentric style. and benetton.

the man himself!

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/c1/f1/1e/c1f11e1919e5f3e7c3ce995d1f16ae3c.jpg

Heck of a lot of trouble to go to just to disguise the guy's schlong.

http://41.media.tumblr.com/79bfda3bfe6b10d125f9a38aed9b1c1e/tumblr_n792aeWVx51ta49eio1_500.jpg

http://showtellshare.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/P1030627.jpg

https://brianprocell.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/fiorucci.jpg

L.A. street artist who kinda vibes this style:

http://www.aarondelacruz.com/

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7a/b7/8a/7ab78afa29089fffc254b81eaeae7d8d.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/13/90/6d/13906dbfcd4154ca3b7aabaabaf65961.jpg

you see Haring rip offs all the time in the UK. the babies and the dancing figures etc. in adverts, posters.. it's been that way for as far back as i can remember over here. i often wonder if people who are ripping it off even realise they're stealing a specific artist's work/ideas or that they just think this is 'a style' that everyone uses. i can't tell you how common it is.

shit like this

http://i.vimeocdn.com/video/453532894_640.jpg

http://pics.drugstore.com/prodimg/428479/220.jpg

one from haring's pop shop:

http://p1.la-img.com/1387/45505/20702830_2_l.jpg

Generra shirt, 1985:
http://blog.monstervintage.com/wp-content/uploads/generra-shirt.jpg

It's Stephen Sprouse also

http://www.aolcdn.com/photogalleryassets/stylelist/522070/debbie-harry-stephen-sprouse-then-571tp030509.jpg

The summer 1985 collection of the design group The Cloth, displayed in the windows of the London store Liberty. Photo by Anita Corbin.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kpTY4uExHNk/UT1AONRODUI/AAAAAAAADXg/dOx7qCK4MSI/s1600/3.jpeg

jmm posted a photo from the same session upthread.

this piece from the new moschino collection has the right vibe.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8583/16323536185_ab23d21fa3_b.jpg

https://forgottendoll.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/antonio_linea_3-1985_cropped.jpg

Keith Carradine in Trouble in Mind (1985):
http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sites/explore.bfi.org.uk/files/styles/gallery_full/public/bfi_stills/bfi-00n-1cr.jpg

My bff in highschool loved drawing fashion artwork much along these lines. Lots of severe hair, big angles, and Mondrian-esque colourways.

xpost i wish more men would dress like that today. out with fedoras, in with lime green ties.

feel like this is an aesthetic that looks way better in staged shoots with good lighting on film than in life or on cloudy days or shot on video or against the background of everyday banal spaces or w/e. like i'm sure me or my mom had some like tacky t-shirts that took on aspects of this (certainly there was some fido dido in the house) but it never would have actually looked cool like this stuff. i mean this is sort of true of all fashion ever, but maybe specifically about putting so many chips on the big, bold, slammin' colors - one cloud passes over the sun and they're turned back into ordinary cloth somehow.

it also looks way, way better to me in 2014 than i think the same exact photos would have looked to me in 2000. dunno if that means current looks are kinda bringing back aspects of this, or if i just have a better grip on (or at least an image of) the political and social cultures that went along with some of this stuff. i mean it seems to me now that the positivity in keith haring, or in, i dunno, 3 feet high and rising, is not just some naive facebook share let's-get-happy thing but a conscious and grounded choice to be positive in the face of some shit, and to talk about getting bills passed and awareness raised and so on. this might be distorted too but i think as a youth i just associated all of it with some lame thumbs-up motivational poster bullshit. and now it reminds me much more of friends trying to carve out (with a different aesthetic, considerably more lo-fi and grittier but stiill) zones of positivity and welcoming-ness and fuck-yeahness. not that any of this has much to do with the sale of high-end garments but..yeah.

shout out to j. geils band for rocking a kind of memphis group/geometric aesthetic in 1981:

http://jgeilsband.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Freeze-Frame_Geils_LP.jpg

some lame thumbs-up motivational poster bullshit.

fair enough, but today's motivational poster bullshit is way way way less cool than this. i will take a hundred day glo spuds mackenzies over some niagara falls "keep calm and carry on" image macro puke.

but yeah, at the human level, positivity is brave when you're coming at it from an oppositional/outsider stance. it's easy to say "fuck everything" and wear black like a '77 punk or batcaver, but to be colorful and proud when others want you to be ashamed of who you are -- that really ticks people off. of course this style trickled down to the normals too, but the ones who created it and really owned it were the artist freaks.

sort of feel like haring's work is always the most interesting example of this "style" whenever i see it.

like that james rizzi thing above makes me ill it's so bad

maybe my viewpt is colored by haring's extra-artistic work as if it's possible to separate the two. anyway this style or look is variegated with the occasional high point i think.

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/25800000/Clarissa-Explains-It-All-clarissa-explains-it-all-25894514-658-444.png

i think it was trayce who namechecked mondrian -- that mondrian/color block look was huge then.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7545/15703961773_a1faecec08_o.png

more color block:

http://cdn-s3-2.wanelo.com/product/image/1371899/x354.jpg

http://www.guiltypeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/trapperkeeper.jpg

i think i actually had that trapper keeper!

https://noclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/tumblr_l0s20npi9k1qzna4vo1_500.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WXSoHY9esRM/TO81XRNgSVI/AAAAAAAAA4I/cH4O_K7gG6A/s1600/Snakefinger_KillTheGreatRaven_RRWIL7907.jpg

http://images.complex.com/complex/image/upload/t_article_image/tuieqlh6cuyxpz9pw2mu.jpg

that's like the venice beach skater version.

https://forgottenadvertisements.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/macho-man-slim-jim.jpg

yeah def. this style always felt more Californian to me when it was occurring, as if MALIBU in neon pink letters should be thrown in somewhere on any ad using it. I guess it's the bright colors.
xp

http://mirror80.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Malibu-Musk1.jpg

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/IMAGES/AWI/AW2024.jpg

yeah def. this style always felt more Californian to me when it was occurring, as if MALIBU in neon pink letters should be thrown in somewhere on any ad using it. I guess it's the bright colors.

there's probably an eighties beach boys album in this motif.

the malibu musk motif, not the geometric abstraction one. the latter might be too much for their fans.

all 80s UK boys' bedroom wallpaper was like a diluted trickle-down version of this, in 1985-89

there's a fine line between high art/couture and everything is terrible found-footage instructional videos with some of this.

i think the line is where the bold colors of the italian designers transition into the pastel pinks and blues of the mall.

Mint chocolate chip

https://www.google.com/search?q=flipsiders&gs_l=img

I don't know if that works but it should be image search for flipsiders

I'm not claiming that it is literally the same aesthetic but that is the vibe I'm catching

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V2U93Y5qf0M/U9FsKYoBWjI/AAAAAAAAAvc/BOfiCLHz4ls/s1600/05_love_and_Pride_LP.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515tWQrIrHL.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JKD5BZC4VY8/TSulGfl60bI/AAAAAAAAPX4/BwCJ39BGIHs/s1600/debarge.jpg

can't handle wide pants though -- ugh

One thing in play with some of the examples above (the Takahashi made me think of this), maybe taking them further from paint splatter day glo into pastels and bits of geometric flair, is the Fifties revival closely associated with a more arch/ironic postmodernism, especially in furniture, industrial design, and interiors. Thinking here of Alessandro Mendini and/or Memphis Group, but in a way would also include the camp of John Waters or the B-52's. Pee Wee's Playhouse, too. All great IMO and in some cases excitingly transgressive but sometimes it's just rich people buying tacky shit because their designer said so. Anyway just seems like kind of a different track even though both definitely scream 80s.

Memphis Group furniture:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Memphis-Milano_Design_Collection.jpg

Coop Himmelb(l)au (no, really!) in this era, with Mendini overseeing:

http://bolidtbooster.com/uploads/mendini1.jpg

https://www.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/13/A70-6729

Esprit: never forget.

http://gravelandgold.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Esprit-kids.jpg

I was thinking of Pee Wee's Playhouse too (iirc his kitchen Big Adventure is along these lines too?). Such a fun and interesting backdrop to take in as a kid while watching. Still reads as FRESH and MODERN to me after all this time, even while simultaneously retro/nostalgic.

http://img7.uploadhouse.com/fileuploads/19056/190569176537b54c54a03c9f5ef34eb6028df323.jpg

"Southland Tales" belongs in this thread, I think.

(And now that I've made this claim I can't find a single image to support it. Nevermind.)

there's a fine line between high art/couture and everything is terrible found-footage instructional videos with some of this.

― mitt fleekwood (get bent), Tuesday, January 20, 2015 2:46 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

true

I have a book on 80s fashion which includes this great Stephen Sprouse picture from 1984, but unfortunately I can't find it online in a proper size. It looks better in the book:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/87/0b/1d/870b1d2fdaf63668817c74098688d248.jpg

https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/10690184_10152347840762688_5124805141478931697_n.jpg?oh=c69ba2f60511c636ddf8b305654676dc&oe=552600C0

ha ha

I was thinking of Pee Wee's Playhouse too (iirc his kitchen Big Adventure is along these lines too?). Such a fun and interesting backdrop to take in as a kid while watching. Still reads as FRESH and MODERN to me after all this time, even while simultaneously retro/nostalgic.

never seen Pee-Wee's Playhouse but the sets were designed by Gary Panter

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IDNAZMKvL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1366990953l/635842.jpg

http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/images/e/e0/Studio_Tan.jpg

http://www.reglarwiglar.com/comicartists/comicjpgs/Panter/panterasshole.jpg

http://michelfiffe.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/RCHP2.jpg

http://www.spd.org/images/blog/gp.jpg

So my question is what is the NAME for this style? Very often I've wanted to describe something by saying, well, that it looked exactly like that Malibu Musk packaging or the frame around Elton John's "Jump Up!" sleeve. Pastel colors, unmoored geometric figures, squiggles. How to specify this in a few words?

loving this thread more that I can say. wish I still owned some clothes from this era, brands like Genarra & Williwear. 1984/85 was when I saw the light and started wearing colorful duds instead of regulation east village hipster all-black.

maybe relevant:

http://zone7style.blogspot.com/

https://printarchive.wordpress.com/

like i feel there might be an overlap of different aesthetics; some of the prints on the print archive site seem to be too rococo for this vibe.

http://www.vinyl-minded.com/shop/images/8/885675.jpg

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/dd/03/02f3228348a0c00e0dd2e010.L.jpg

This shirt:

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/headline/public/2014/08/12/0812robinwilliamsnw.jpg?itok=sy47-DWe

how did I miss this thread

when I was 12 I came *this* close to owning a pair of blue and white vertical stripe (wide stripes) painter's overalls, complete with suspender straps -- baggy fit with rolled cuffs

mum nixed them because they had a tiny hole in them but I didn't caaaaaaaaaaaaaare I wanted them so much

I still dream about them. I had a fluoro yellow tshirt and crazy pink socks that would have looked SO rad with them, *sigh*

This is pretty rad. 70 minutes of Haring's 1983 New Year's Eve party. I'm not sure if this is his studio. The downstairs space is completely squiggled-up and looks awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJiiW89It_U

I recommend checking out the rest of this channel also. It's delightful.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/Bob_Dylan_-_Empire_Burlesque.jpg

I've been watching Pee Wee's Playhouse a lot in the past couple of days because my (almost) 2 year old is mesmerized by it and my wife was out of town for a couple of days and a lot of it fits in here but other aspects don't that much, there's definitely a retro 1950s interpretation to a lot of it.

Also the Mondrian mention above made me think of this which I had completely forgotten about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n_sG2WNGnA

This thread is great, I can't believe I've only just found it. I was born in 1981 so I've got a lot of half-buried memories of this stuff and I'm sure I had at least one pair of bermuda shorts with this sort of design on them. That Memphis Group furniture picture though... Wow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAWASsbSwWk

http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/ikea-collections/spridd/index.html

I like how BTTF2 anticipated ironic eighties revivalism, even if it got everything other prediction wrong.

http://www.gqmagazine.fr/uploads/images/201543/66/retour_vers_le_futur_ii___mythe_ou_r__alit_____1484.png

Seems like a lot of this design aesthetic carried on into the early 90s.

http://cdn3.artofthetitle.com/assets/sm/upload/pq/ry/60/2h/sbtb_c.jpg
https://assets.vg247.com/current//2015/02/toejam-and-earl.jpg

http://www.liketotally80s.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/feathered-bangs-loreal.jpg

One whiff of the smell of this hairspray and I'm in 1986 in an instant.

That Ikea ad Wes Brodicus posted is pretty on-point, with the only goof being the handling of the overlaid graphics (the floating exclamation points, etc.) which are far too flat and stable, like something made in Illustrator. The old-school form of those, I think, would be in wobbley hand-drawn animation, jittering from frame to frame.

Pardon me while I go buy some frusen gladje

http://acmestudio.com/acme_legacy/