Modish Matrons #24: Inspired by the 1980s

Hello friends! You are welcome to join my gorgeous MODISH MATRONS squad for our new theme - Inspired by the 1980s! When I offered this theme, I imagined I would combine bold colors, batwing sleeves, big bling jewelry, colorblocking... something like it or all of the above. But when it was time to come up with an outfit, my mind went blank - it just couldn't decide what to focus on. Until I remembered the denim dress which I bought back in Winter or early Spring and which immediately brought me back to my own 1980s (the late 80s to be precise), when my distant auntie handed me her unwanted deep blue velvet suit, not too different from what Princess Diana would wear (HERE) - a midi length pencil skirt with a peplum jacket. I remember that at first, it seemed very outdated and matronly to me, but then I made it fit my then slim, perfect hourglass figure, to attend a New Year's Eve party - and I think I looked pretty adorable and classy in my hand-me-down suit!

The upbeat Cyndi Lauper's song Girls Just Want to Have Fun went through my head during our improvised photo shoot right in our blooming garden, and I definitely had tons of fun - as did, I hope, my beauties TINA und BEATE who never cease to amaze and inspire me!

This gorgeous dress by Eloquii (still available on their website) has a few characteristics of the bold 1980s fashion. First of all, this enormous peplum (or баска, as we call it in Russian, from the French word basque) that looks flattering on any body type, and certainly does on my not-so-ideal-these-days hourglass figure, masking my round tummy. It has wider sleeves (no shoulder pads needed for my broad shoulders) and provides the typical 1980s inverted triangle silhouette. All of which you can find in abundance in the old 1980s fashion magazines and sewing patterns (images below are from Internet).

The dress is made of real substantial denim and has a good amount of stretch, so it is very comfortable to wear. And even though I am not a huge fan of denim, I fell for this dress because it's so unique! Jean fabric is neutral, so there are endless possibilities as to dressing it up or down - many styles will make a good match. I chose to wear a colorful pair of Converse, to keep things in tune with the casual fabric, and bold costume jewelry - my old necklace by Talbots, and the hat brooch and yellow plastic earrings are vintage finds. Justin and I went to the movies that evening, and surprisingly I received multiple compliments in the first two minutes. Thank you, thank you!

I felt very playful and lighthearted wearing this outfit, as if I was in a time machine that brought me 30 years back, and I was 15 again! The 1980s was a decade when I went to school, it literally started when I went to the 1st grade, and ended when I graduated. Almost all the years in school, I had to wear a uniform every day, which was quite boring: brown and black for girls, with the exception of holidays when it was brown and white; and dull blue for boys. We only had more relaxed rules about clothing in the last couple of years of school - no uniforms as such, but we still had to keep it formal. At least, I could borrow Mom's colorful blouse with a bow (tailor-made), and I could wear sweaters that I knitted myself. It was a decade when I learned many useful skills, and made a lot of my own clothes by both sewing and knitting, since stores in Soviet times were mostly boasting empty shelves, and it is not a figure of speech - outside of Moscow, literally everything was deficit. But we, stylish girls, had tons of fun searching through the available-in-my-town Polish and German magazines (in Siberia, it was our Wild West!), such as Uroda, Burda Moden and Verena, along with a few Russian magazines and brochures which provided sewing and knitting patterns (I still have some of them!), and finding fashion inspirations from the movies and music videos of that time (not Cyndi Lauper though - good Soviet girls weren't suppose to have fun, not according to the official media anyway). 

Upper right: the very first sweater that I knitted (not counting sweaters I made for my dolls as a child). Lower right: my school uniform (white apron for national holidays, and plastic loops in my ears as a fashion statement). On the left: this knitted top, as everything else in my tiny wardrobe, I wore to threads, with everything I owned. I made fashionable puffy hair by braiding my hair into about 50 tiny braids, and I made hair ribbon from a piece of blue lacy fabric I got a hold of - we were quite inventive! I was 15-16 years old then, in 1988-89.

It was a decade of my childhood and early youth, and I do have many good memories about those years, but I am glad that the time machine brought me back to our times! There is so much criticism towards the modern ways of living, but I guess we all compare with what we had to experience. And while the fashion was fun, I am so glad it's not 1980s anymore. I'm happy with the way life progressed both for me personally, and for my home country. We haven't succeeded all the way, but we are far from being done yet! And while I do believe that it's great to appreciate what we have, at the same time I think that life, just as the Universe, is meant to expand, not to be lacking or shrinking, in all ways - materially and spiritually. I'm looking forward to the new decades!

Tina, Beate and I will be happy if you join us in our time machine. How would you interpret the 1980s with the clothes from your current wardrobe? The link-up is open for the whole month of June! Have fun!

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