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'80s Fashion For Women

'80s Fashion For Women

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John Mayer Loves the '80s

John Mayer stepped out of the hair salon in NYC yesterday, showing off his freshly blow-dried, fluffy new 'do. John is so excited about his '80s reminiscent haircut that not only was he already brushing out his locks as he headed into Armani, but he blogged about his new hair goal — a full-on feathered style. We hope Jennifer Aniston likes his new look, since apparently the couple is just starting to heat up and already miss each other.  Maybe she can bring back the '90s Rachel haircut to keep up with her man's throwback hair.    

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I Heart the 80s: 'Son of Rambow'

Remember the 80s? Teased hair, spandex, Atari? And how the ultimate movie was First Blood — 130 totally awesome minutes of Sly Stallone stalking through the forest with a red bandana and a kick-ass knife? Son of Rambow director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith (known collectively as Hammer & Tongs, the duo behind Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) haven't forgotten that time. In fact, they've spent the last eight years on a script that is a love letter to their years growing up in England.

Son of Rambow tells the story a friendship between two British boys and their attempt to pay homage to the greatest action flick of the decade. Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) is a wildly creative kid who has been insulated from the excesses of the 80s by his mother, a member of a stoic conservative Christian group Plymouth Brethren, which forbids television, films and popular music. When he is banished from the classroom because he is not permitted by his faith to watch an educational film, he runs into Lee Carter (Will Poulter), the obnoxiously malevolent school bully. Lee has been left to his own devices by a wealthy mother who relies on her eldest son Lawrence (Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick) to raise his brother while she flits around Europe. Lee has all the material needs a kid could desire. He doesn't give a sod about school. All he wants to do is direct, executive produce and star in a sequel to his favorite film, First Blood. Lee initially exploits the naïve Will by roping him into his filmmaking adventure, but the overly ambitious project proves to be the exact creative outlet Will has needed, and the two boys develop a blood-brother bond. "We were trying to capture how great it felt to be twelve, using this story about these kids' friendship through the making of this crazy movie as a way of doing that," says Jennings. "[And] by having a boy who has never seen any movies and the first thing he ever sees is First Blood everyone gets it from that point on, especially as he has been established as a very imaginative little child, and you smash those two things together, and then you are off and running."

Son of Rambow is the final product of a life-long ambition for Jennings, who says he too had been "blown away" by a pirated copy of First Blood as a kid and made a film inspired by Rambo. "I have the original film," he confesses. "It is called Aaron Part 1. I play the head of the Military of Defense and I am kidnapped by the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) and my Dad was the get-away driver and then I am thrown in a shed and tortured and held to ransom and then my friend Aaron, who is a Rambo guy comes over, and beats everybody up and burns the terrorists alive — which must have been weird for my Mum and Dad to watch, especially as it was all filmed in their back yard!"

"We set out to try and capture how great it is to be at an age and in a position to not consider the consequences and have no fear of making mistakes," says Jennings, "and not really care where someone is from: if you like them and you share an interest, you become friends. And those friendships can be really deep."

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Mel Gibson back in front of camera for Edge of Darkness

Mel Gibson is to return to acting for the first time in six years in a feature adaptation of 80s BBC drama Edge of Darkness.

The Mad Max star has not topped the bill in front of the camera since Signs and We Were Soldiers in 2002, having concentrated on directing with The Passion of the Christ in 2004 and Apocalypto in 2006.

But after Martin Campbell, director of the original television series, developed a cinematic version of the show with Graham King and William Monahan, the Oscar-winning producer and screenwriter of The Departed, Gibson has now committed to his first acting role in years, Variety reports.

The Bafta-winning BBC miniseries featured Bob Peck as a policeman whose activist daughter is murdered in front of him.

When he delves deeper into the case, he uncovers a dense conspiracy of government intrigue and nuclear corruption.

According to Variety, Gibson is a long-time fan of the show and was receptive to King and Campbell's overtures.

The role in Edge of Darkness, which begins shooting in Boston in August, will represent the Braveheart star's first attempt to court public affections since his approval ratings declined after a drunk-driving arrest in 2006, following which he made anti-Semitic remarks.

Having had his drivers' licence suspended, received three years' probation and a $1,300 (£650) fine and been ordered to attend alcohol education classes and a three-month alcohol education programme, he later described the incident as a "moment of insanity"

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Cher: I was crazy about Tom Cruise

Legendary singer Cher has admitted she enjoyed a fling with Tom Cruise   - and revealed that she was 'crazy about him'.

The star made the revelation in a recording of the Oprah show, to be aired next month, admitting that, if they hadn't been forced apart by work schedules, their relationship could have been a 'great big romance'.

The pair are thought to have met at a White House fund-raising event in the Eighties, when 23-year-old Tom's star was in its ascendancy, and he was enjoying the limelight his first hit film, Risky Business, had brought upon him.

Cher, meanwhile, was 39 and had enjoyed nearly two decades of fame and success.

In the show, Cher describes Tom as an awkward young man, who struggled to fit in at school.

She told Oprah: 'He was shy. He said he felt like such a boob in school and nobody talked to him. We went on a date once for dinner in a New York restaurant and the waitress was from his old school.

He told me she never talked to him back in school, but now he was recognised he got all her attention.'

She added: 'It could have been a great big romance because I was crazy for him.'

The crowd burst into whoops and cheers when she described one particularly 'long night' spent in his arms.

They are thought to have dated for a several months, but the affair came to an end when Cruise met Mimi Rogers, who was six years his senior, and who became his first wife. Cruise separated from Rogers after three years in 1990.

He went on to marry Nicole Kidman the same year, and stayed with her for 11 years until 2001.

He married third wife Katie Holmes in 2006.

Cher has been married twice. Her marriage to Sonny Bono ended after 11 years while her second to rock star Gregg Allman lasted a paltry nine days.

She told Oprah Winfrey she was currently single, and that she broke up with her last serious boyfriend, actor Rob Camilletti, nearly 15 years ago.

'Dating is a strange thing,' she declared. 'It's not every man who can be comfortable with me. Being Cher is a hard thing and difficult for him to hold his place.'

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How to make a totally awesome Rubik's Cube cake!

Ohhh, yes. The ever infuriating Rubik's Cube. No doubt we have all spent a good deal of time on our favorite 80s toy. Some of us are naturally gifted...most of us are not. Alas.

Regardless, I think we all hold a place near and dear to our hearts for the cube. It is a timeless symbol of geekiness! Let us not forget it!

In this instructable, I will teach you how to pay tribute to this awesome cube. It's simple to do and anyone can achieve the awesomeness that is the final project. Wow your friends and read on!

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Keith Chegwin defends '80s pop culture

Keith Chegwin has spoken out about a survey claiming that the '80s was the worst decade of the 20th century.

He argued that the decade created plenty of musical talent and said he was proud of the unusual clothing fashions that dominated the era.

Chegwin told DS: "People have been knocking the '80s - what's going on, how can they do that?

"In this survey, people said they couldn't stand things like the fashions, the hairstyles and the mullets. TV shows like Dallas, Rainbow, and Timmy Mallet, but in my recollections the '80s were fantastic.

"We produced such great bands like Ultravox and Duran Duran. Then there was the clothes; on Cheggers Plays Pop I couldn't wait to put on my flares and gold jacket and say 'wahey!'."

When asked about the most popular decade, the '60s, he commented: "I don't mind the free love, but the rest of it you can keep."

The veteran TV presenter also defended Timmy Mallet, who was voted one of the most embarrassing things in the decade.

"I thought he was bloody brilliant," said Chegwin. "I thought he was very inventive with his mallet and his silly games.

"I heard on the grapevine that he was left to his own devices on the show and I think he did really well. People enjoyed it and loved it, and even now he still packs out the discos, so good luck to the bloke."

The survey was commissioned by UKTV Gold to promote the When We Were Funniest? series.

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Get a dress, corsage and babysitter: Adults are going to the prom

It’s springtime in New York — prom season. At a table near the back of the dance floor, the spiky-haired blonde and her friend with crimped brown hair giggle as they take a photo of themselves all dressed up in shiny satin dresses. The spotlights rotate wildly as rock tunes blare from the speakers. Marnie Roth waves her arms in the air as the two make their way back to the surging dance floor, revealing her carnation wrist corsage.

Roth, however, is no high school senior. Sporting a shortened blue satin bridesmaid’s dress over black leggings and flats, the 36-year-old newlywed from New Jersey and her best friend, Shawna Unger, 34, of Brooklyn, are just two of the hundreds of adults attending tonight’s event, which is called “The Awesome ’80s Prom,” an audience-participation off-Broadway show in Manhattan that opened in 2004.

The show features improv actors playing characters at a 1989 high school prom, with the audience packing the dance floor as the rest of the prom-goers.

“My prom was a nightmare,” said Roth, who recalled that, when she was a high school senior back in California in 1990, her boyfriend broke up with her two weeks before the dance. Her replacement date, an actor friend, then proceeded to humiliate her when he dropped down to the dance floor and performed the undulating moves of “the worm.”

Her best friend Unger, who works in children’s book publishing and is wearing a long purple satin gown, said the three proms she attended during her high school years just weren’t a lot of fun. “It was awkward,” she said. “Most of it was spent being nervous, I think.”

The opportunity to finally enjoy the prom experience, minus the adolescent self-consciousness about sudden pimples and impressing a date, is what draws adults to events like “The Awesome ’80s Prom,” said Ken Davenport, the interactive show’s writer and director. “When you’re older, you realize that all that stuff doesn’t really matter as much.”

The theme has definitely caught on. “The Awesome ’80s Prom” expanded to Chicago, Minneapolis and Baltimore. And adults across the country have been reinventing their prom experiences on their own for several years.

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Duran Duran still hungry like the wolf

At the time of Duran Duran's big-haired '80s heyday, video was doing a thorough job of killing the radio star. Plenty of bands were guilty of having bloody hands and pretty faces, but the boys from Birmingham were among the guiltiest of them all.

Duran Duran. Rhodes (far left) comments on make-up: "It depends what I feel like when I wake up in the morning. You often need it as the years advance - the poly-filler, just put a bit more in."

Their melodramatic glam videos are almost laughable today, but at the time, they were cinematic marvels that generated millions of lusty teenage fans and gave the band an indelible association with eyeliner, lip gloss, coiffed hair and pouffy shirts.

Duran Duran is still making videos, still making albums and still touring. Their latest show touches down at GM Place Tuesday night.

But just as video killed the radio star, YouTube and other online video-sharing websites are rapidly killing the relevance of the televised music video.

"I haven't actually purposely watched MTV in more than a decade," said Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran's keyboard player and founding member, over the phone from Costa Rica earlier this week.

"It's just not really of any interest to me. I don't think MTV has any relevance any more to music - except for the award show."

There was a time - more than 20 years ago - when MTV had the power to dictate which artists were relevant and worthy simply by playing their videos. Duran Duran was an easy favourite, with sexy cinematic fare to accompany perfect pop tunes such as Girls on Film, Hungry Like the Wolf, and Rio.

Girls in bikinis combined with pretty boys in suits turned out to be an enduring formula for video, making Duran Duran iconic figures of the MTV age.

But as much as the band revelled in their '80s glory, their continuing willingness to tour is not based solely on nostalgia (although it's a safe bet that the vast majority of their screaming female fans show up mostly for the nostalgia factor).

Rhodes, along with singer Simon Le Bon and a rotating line-up of men sharing the last name Taylor - none of whom is related - have produced a steady stream of albums over the decades. The band has never matched the success it had in the '80s, but they have continued to write new material, which they proudly showcase on tour. (The same cannot be said for other nostalgia acts such as the Police and Van Halen.)

Most recently, the band released Red Carpet Massacre, an album of new material that includes collaborations with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland - the current 'It'-duo of the music world.

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Relax..

The 80s Weren't That Bad

IT'S often described as the decade that taste forgot. And now the Eighties has been officially declared the least fashionable era of all time.

The years of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Miami Vice and Duran Duran have come first in a poll by satellite channel UKTV Gold on which decade was the worst in terms of cool and style.

According to 3000 adults, the Sixties was best.

While the Seventies with bellbottoms and bubble perms, and the Nineties with shellsuits and puffa jackets were also listed as bad, it was the Eighties that was the clear loser.

Its worst style offences include leg-warmers, shoulder-pads, the new romantic look (especially on men), ra-ra skirts and mullets.

Ben Elton's shiny suits, Timmy Mallett's colourful glasses and hat combo, the tacky glamour of Dynasty, Agadoo by Black Lace and Miami Vice's crumpled-sleeve jackets and espadrille look were also considered as among the lowest of the low.

Thatcherism, yuppies, the Falklands War and the miners' strike are among the defining elements of the decade.

But while the era has been condemned for its style, the same survey also says bands such as Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet created a positive memory of the time with long-lasting songs.

A spokesman for UKTV Gold said: "Brits are left so red-faced by the Eighties, whether they experienced the decade or not, that a third of us would prefer to forget it ever happened.

"It's not all excruciating embarrassment, with many people quick to point out that there were plenty of things they remembered fondly from the decade - with neon clothing, leggings, perms and even Duran Duran all attracting votes as the nation's favourite memories."

But even if the decade is something that most of us would like to forget, Daily Record columnist Shari Low still remembers it clearly.

Here she recalls what it was really like to get caught up in the buzz of Eighties.

AH, those heady days before Madonna had arms like a shot-putter, before Elton John got his hair back and when I still thought I was in with a shout of becoming the next Mrs George Michael (I know, I know, those white shorts in the Wake Me Up Before You Go Go video should have been a clue).

Sure, the decade did have its downsides. You never got to see a cinema screen because of the 2ft-wide hair-dos on everyone sitting in front.

White stilettos forever getting stuck in the cracks between pavements. And shoulder-pads may have made the hips look smaller by comparison, but mine were so wide that I once got wedged for 40 minutes while trying to climb upstairs on a Renfrew to Govan bus.

That was around the same time as I singed my eyebrows after attempting to camouflage the smell of my illicit St Moritz ciggie by spraying half a bottle of Charlie. Valuable life lesson number 46 - always extinguish cigarettes before spraying flammable liquids.

Maybe I was looking through my rose-tinted lava lamps but I truly believe that life was much simpler then. Forget designer labels. All you needed to look suave and sophisticated was a Culture Club T-shirt, tukka boots and one of those pure dead posh drinks, a Malibu and pineapple.

We still thought boilersuits in primary colours were a great idea, and nothing would ever overtake those three feats of technological brilliance - the sandwich toaster, the Walkman and the Soda Stream.

Oh, and prior to 1984, a Band Aid was something you stuck on your neck to hide your lovebites.

Us girls knew we were hip when we slipped on our baggy white trouser suit, pink T-shirt, espadrilles and settled down to watch re-runs of Miami Vice on our Betamax video recorder.

Meanwhile, blokes knew they were going home with a lumber if they managed to beg, steal or borrow the ultimate pulling-machine - a Ford Cortina (even if, like my flatmate at the time, they had to take the battery out every night and recharge it on the kitchen table).

Many contemporary sources of worry, pain and stress had yet to be invented. Back in 1987, I'd have said Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Global Warming and Brazilian Wax were probably bands battling it out with Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet in the charts.

And drugs? We'd heard of them but the only time they affected our lives were when we tried to batter off last night's hangover with a quick Askit powder on the way to work.

Yep, the Eighties were utterly fabulous and I can't think of a single person who wouldn't rather go back to the life we had then ... except maybe Elton.

Signed, Mrs G.Michael.

'A Band Aid was something that hid lovebites'

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