1980s Candy Wrappers: The Best

I have collected candy wrappers since I was, oh, I don't know, probably nine years old. I liked the colors, the fonts, the whole thing. Willy Wonka candies were my favorite because of their liberal use of bubble letters, a favorite of all nine-year-olds in the 80s. I was also a Bubble Yum and Bubblicious fan for the same reason, now that I think of it! Here are some of my favorites-- and credit/copyright is due to the rightful owners. I am just the giver of props:

I HATE SHOPPING

I went to look for a black tank top today. Here were the requirements: It had to be black. It had to cover my bra.

I drove to the mall, I walked in and was so distracted that I immediately felt anxious—so many things! Is that an Aveda store? I love the smell of their products! Godiva? Those truffles are really good—but I can now get Godiva at Kohl’s so it is not as precious as when it was only available at Macys during Christmas. 

Oh no…the kiosk guys! They are so aggressive! Ahh, they are coming after me with little spritzers and cards and packets and who knows what else—Please, get away from me, I don’t care if you are going to give me a million damn dollars, you are coming at me with an aggressive smile and I feel very uncomfortable! 

Crabtree and Evelyn? Doesn’t my mom love that place? Should I get her a gift now and save it for later? Abercrombie and Fitch? That is still around? Teavana. Oh I wish I knew the name of that crackhead tea I once had at that British lady’s house—Golden Monkey? Something that made me feel like I was high on something and that I could float on air and have brilliant conversations. 

Forever 21. Oooh. I like to look in there just to get a feel of what is going on in culture. Well, apparently, cut off Def Leppard and Guns n Roses shirts are going on in culture. My ninth grade wardrobe is literally on mannequins.

Walk into Zara. The place is an absolute hellhole of polyester, on racks that made no sense. Nothing by color or style, just basically Goodwill, or a garage sale. Nice sales girls though.

Victoria's Secret. Gay guy helped me. I wanted some sleep shorts in a cute color. I said I didn’t want 'ball-crusher' shorts, I like to put my knee up while I slept. He looked at me funny. I told him I thought they had only butt-ugly colors available that day, like a the puke rust color—where was the violet and neon pink? Turns out he was wearing the puke rust shirt. 

Asked the Victoria's Secret manager if they had those glorious nineties lotions like Pear Glace—she said the only once still around was Vanilla Lace. I said “The stripper one?” No comment.

So basically, after leaving the mall and looking through Home Goods, TJ Maxx and all of those stores, I have come to the conclusion that there is TOO MUCH SH*T out there. THERE ARE TOO MANY THINGS, too many choices. These things are shoved in our faces and our brains cannot compute. Well, mine can’t. 

Now, back to my laptop and AMAZON.COM....

1980s Fashion!

I still love it!

I remember seeing brands like Benetton, Ton Sur Ton, Guess?, Jordache (“designer” jeans) , Sergio Valente (“designer” jeans), Sassoon (“designer” jeans), Gloria Vanderbilt (“designer” jeans), and of course the ones that are still around today as others have mentioned (Calvin Klein, etc.). Shoes: I just remember getting mine at a store called “The Wild Pair.” There were also other stores that were in fashion and all of their clothes were labled as their own brand: Contempo Casuals, Judy’s, 5 7 9. People were really into Swatch watches. Also Z Cavaricci for guys. 

Leg warmers are one of the things people think of when thinking about the 80s. I think it came from the movie “Flashdance” in 1983 and also from a singer named Pat Bentar (look on youtube for Love is a Battlefield.) They showed women wearing leotards and wearing leg warmers and the next thing you knew, they were everywhere and the kids at school had them. Oh! The biggest thing: Jane Fonda’s Workout. It was this exercise craze, and Jame Fonda was on the cover of the workout video wearing leg warmers. That was another big one.

Then there was the whole rock chick thing. I would say it really came in with Bon Jovi, Guns n Roses, Poison and Motley Crue, because the 80s chicks watched the bands’ music videos on MTV and then tried to copy the style of the girls in the videos. I remember trying to copy Tawny Kitean’s look from the Whitesnake video (white heels, crazy big hair, white dress) and many of the Motley Crue girls from the videos. In real life, the girls who were actual fans wore the band t-shirts and some levi’s. The crazy rocker chick look came from those videos, where the women were overly styled. As far as it going out of style, it went out when the hair band music became played out. When grunge started really gaining momentum in 1993 was when the look went totally out.

There was a goth sort of fashion back then, as you probably know. From what I recall, the shoes were either: Creepers (low) Doc Martens (high) or black converse. Skinny black jeans or Dickies on some kids. Red lips on girls, lots of black eye liner on the girls, but no one knew how to do their brows. The guys wore trenchcoats and had hair over one eye, sometimes wore hats, and some ventured into a hybrid of punk fashion (Sid Vicious chains, safety pinned denim jackets with patches, spiked hair) Everyone had a cigarette hanging out of their mouth.

The 80s fashion carried over a little bit into the 90s. Half of the girls still had big sprayed 80s hair and perms. The other half were starting to straighten their hair and flip it to one side and wear big hoop earrings (see: Kelly Bundy from Married With Children (hair.) The pale pink lip was also carried over from the mid eighties and late eighties (about half the girls still wore that color) while the other half started wearing a darker lip. A heavy brow was still in fashion (see: Beverly Hills 90210 first and second seasons for all hair/clothing that was from 1990 91). Scrunchie socks and L.A. Gear shoes carried from late eighties to early nineties. The only neon that carried over from what I saw was from nail polish on some girls.

Back to work!

Til next time

Whatever Happened to Gitano and EVA JOIA? Pull Up A Chair...

Whatever happened to Gitano and EVA JOIA?

There are a few things I noticed about Gitano's Eva Joia brand in the 80s (I think it was roughly 1986 it came out.) I noticed that the girls were mostly not smiling, and that they appeared to be very styled, pushing the envelope as far as fashion-- lots of layering, mismatching patterns, avant garde hair. It wasn't the typical Sears catalog fashion I was used to seeing.

Fancy brands were super expensive and carried in  department stores,  but this brand was in stores like Gemco, Wal-Mart and other such discounted spots, giving girls a feel of snobby poshness at an affordable price for their parents. Genius.

And it was a CLUB you belonged to.

The three blondes? In the club. The happy redhead? Not yet in the club. It was 80s mean girls in the making, exclusionary tactics at their best in the marketing of this brand.

You would of course probably have THIS in your room while you were contemplating all of this new information....

A CLUB? Where I send for a special BUTTON and MEMBERSHIP CARD!? Well, hell yeah, let's DO THIS!

Ads like this were appearing for young girls in Barbie Magazines

And many of us had started on our caboodles, trying to look like those models...

Cute watches? Berets? Floral outfits!? Why,YES PLEASE we thought.

We even called our friends on one of these to talk about it, or say how dumb we thought it was, while secretly being intrigued.

Even the smallest of girls were encouraged to join the club and be mini-bitches who knew it all

I was all for pastels, so I thought it was super cute. Oh, by the way, all of these pictures came off Pinterest and are not mine! Not claiming ownership whatsoever.

And they made sure to throw in other ethnicities after the initial pure white campaigns. They were no fools.

Don't you want to be a PART OF US?!

What happened to the club? I wanted to know. So I did some research on this trademark.

 The EVA JOIA GIRL trademark was filed on 4/3/86, but by March 1987 the trademark was abandoned, with this message: "602 - Abandoned-Failure To Respond Or Late Response"

Then there was the EVA JOIA CLUB  trademark, which was closed down for a Section 8 Affidavit. What the hell does that mean? For a trademark to remain valid, a section 8 needs to be filed (1) between the fifth and sixth year following registration. Not done Eva Joia!  It was completely done by 1993-08-30 (CANCELLED SEC. 8 (6-YR). What happened in 1993?

Things started getting tough for Gitano y'all. Turns out that in 1991 and 1992 they had violated United States customs laws and got in huge trouble. Trouble as in felony charges. A 2.7 million dollar shipment of their women's tops was produced in Malaysia (a country who had already exceeded their quotas--the U.S. was not taking anything else from them that year.)  Gitano wanted those shirts to please their largest carrier, Wal-Mart,  sooooo they decided to falsify paperwork and labels to conceal the fact that the clothes came from Malaysia. Here you go Wal-Mart! Here is some more product! Members of Gitano were investigated by the government and ended up pleaded guilty to exceeding clothing import quotas.

Wal-Mart found out about the illegal activity and went through the roof! They had a policy that they would never deal with suppliers that have pleaded guilty to Federal offenses and straight pulled all Gitano clothing off their shelves, which literally sank the entire Gitano brand. 

In 1991 Gitano reported a  loss of $62.5 million on sales of $781 million. Ruh roh. They started selling off their fringe brands like *sniff* Eva Joia, but they still owed way too much to creditors. They declared bankruptcy and were acquired by Fruit of the Loom in 1994 for 100 million dollars (30 million less than they owed creditors.) I think they are still around in some way, shape or form, because I just looked them up on Amazon and they are STILL ALIVE.  Not Eva Joia mind you, but Gitano. So there you go: As most tales of the 80s go, this cute lil clothing brand came crashing down because of lies and greed. 

Til Next Time!

Blame These Toys for My Fashion Sense Today

Did you guys have Fashion Plates? Holy Smurf they were awesome, as I have mentioned on this blog before. I got them when I was six from my Aunt Darla, who, in fact, wore a fierce white hat to her wedding, but I digress. Fashion Plates were stencils of hairstyles, tops and bottoms/shoes and you could put together outfits! There was even a tennis outfit! I didn't appreciate that outfit then, but it influenced me, because I now walk around in a tennis outfit at least once a week, and on other days I find my self wanting to wear a big floppy sunhat or a plaid jumper with boots! Okay so maybe not the jumper, but I do love plaids around Christmas.

 Ohhhhh, hold me back. Hold me back. I can barely talk about the toy of ALL TOYS: The Golden Dream Barbie Fashion Face STYLING HEAD! There were other weird looking styling heads in the late 70s, early 80s with super long necks and alien heads, but this one was so awesome! I still have a thing for pink and gold. *exhales*. ANYWAY...This particular styling head had gold wire mixed in with the hair (They called it "Quick Curl" hair) and a little curling iron (held together by a rubber hand) and you could CURL THE HAIR!! I made so many bad ass hairstyles that I nearly went into a manic overload- it was just too glorious.

Did you guys have Fresh 'n Fancy!? I had one of their makeup kits- it wasn't this one above- it was one where you actually shot creamy goo into hollow, fat, pink pencils; waited for the goo to dry, and then sharpened those suckers. The lipsticks were NEON bright, deep pink, and a glowing red. The eye pencils were super bright creamy blue and of course lavender- what else?! I also had Fresh 'n Fancy hair extension kit where you could make streaks in the extensions and stick them in your nine year old hair. Uh, YES PLEASE!

Anyway, I have continued to have wayyyyyy too theatrical of make-up for everyday use, and I blame it on both this toy, and the Barbie Head- the makeup that came with it was meant for Phyllis Diller.

All right, off my chest.

Love you guys! Had to disable comments because I was getting depressed from so many people hating my guts- but for those of you who don't, thank you!!