Throwback Thursday: The Big Shirts of the 1980s

BarbaraB — aka my mom, the style icon — was going through some old pictures recently. I think I might be her clone!

Left: Mom in the late 1970s/early ’80s. Right: me, this New Year’s Eve.

The silky green blouse that BarbaraB is wearing in that photo is a different one from the linen-look green blouse mom wore in a later photo that I originally posted here. She just really liked the green-blouse-over-black look.

Silky vs textured.

In the 1980s, we were all about the oversize shirt/blouse. I wore this short-sleeved turquoise shirt by itself, usually tied in a knot in the front. It was big but not super-long.

1989. Click for original post.

More typically, I wore very long shirts — down to mid-thigh at least. I got this blue shirt in the men’s department at Bloomingdale’s.

1985/6. The higher the hair, the closer to God!

Apparently, it kept sending out a men’s department vibe, because guys always complimented the color and the pattern of this shirt.

When I was being sex-ay, I wore my big shirts unbuttoned (at least partially) over tank tops, paired with either stirrup pants or black leggings.

1986. Click for original post.

In college, my favorite big shirt was one the floral one that BarbaraB bought for me in Paris. You can’t appreciate its full length here, unfortunately.

1986. Click for my original post about this shirt.

I could never bear to part with that one. In 2010 or so, I had Jean from Ghost Tailor hem it shorter to make it wearable in the 21st century.

The shirt in 2010. Click for original post.

I was wearing it out and about this Dec. 31 during the day, but I didn’t take a picture of it.

My fanciest big shirt doesn’t look very appealing in this photo, but — trust me — it was fabulous! It was sheer with a faux-tattered texture.

1985, at Northwestern University.

I wore that shirt to see Madonna at Radio City Music Hall in June 1985. I went to that concert instead of going to my high-school prom, and I convinced BarbaraB to buy me the fancy shirt for the occasion by pointing out she was off the hook for prom-related expenses. I had that shirt hanging in a closet in my parents’ house for many, many years, and, before they moved in 2013, I desperately searched for it. Unfortunately, it seemed that in a long-ago, foolish closet purging, I threw it out along with treasures such as my Wham!, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Duran Duran concert t-shirts. Damn it. I would have loved to have Jean the tailor cut that one down to a wearable size.