A-ha Just Released A New Album Too

So, you know how at a certain moment--usually a little too early on in November--by seemingly subliminal accord, an army of janitors are sent to their respective basements to retrieve their dusty garlands and fairy lights, junior sales clerks in malls everywhere are tasked with arranging gaudy displays of tinsel and beglittered glass ornaments, and suddenly pepperkake and juleøl are back in your life? Well, maybe that last example only happens here in Norway, but that's just too bad for the rest of ya'll, isn't it?

My point is, the arrival of Christmas is cyclical. Predictable. If you live anywhere in the western world, it's inescapable.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that the fashion world runs on pretty much the same uninspired principle.

I swear, last summer a light in a basement somewhere started flashing neon, and a message went out to retailers the world over: FASHION REBOOT, 1985, STIRRUPS OPTIONAL. With great haste all those eager junior sales clerks were sent into the darkest corners of their storage rooms to retrieve boxes and boxes of unsold chunky belts, plastic shoes, and leg warmers that had been languishing...muldering...waiting for this very moment. Maybe--just maybe--they'll get lucky enough to unload all this garbage this time around!

Perhaps I over-simplify. I guess the advent of this season has been coming for a year or more. It started with the return of jeans to the waist where they belong. And continued with sightings of high-top Reeboks, and sassy black ankle boots. But this, ladies and gentlemen, this then--right now--must surely be the high season.

I'm seeing mohair, for crying out loud! Chunky, loose knit sweaters in pastel colored mohair.

Last week I was in Oasis looking for something to wear to a wedding, and I saw a glossy sign on the wall that read Does this jacket make my shoulders look big? And sure enough, there below the sign, was a rack of dress blazers, all with thickly padded, oddly pointy shoulders. All hail the great Joan Collins!

But the blast from the past that has most caught my attention, the iconic relic that makes me most certain that H & M wants me to believe that I'm back in 1985, is the blue. The deeply saturated, highly synthetic, so royal it all but commands your attention blue that is everywhere at the moment. It was the color of my very first pair of stirrups. I had a wool coat with huge plastic buttons in that color. When I was home for the summer, I cleared out a drawer of old clothes and threw away a faded pair of socks that were once that color.

I'm not sure--I haven't quite decided--but I think I rather like it. Not just the color, but the whole current fashion reboot. All those loose fitting, blousy, off-the-shoulder shirts and sweaters are certainly a lot easier on a frumpy frame than the low-riser, skin tight cuts of two seasons ago. I'll tell you that much.

And it's got me missing my Swatch watches too. The ones with the pastel straps. Mine were pink and blue. Some of the girls preferred the white and yellow. But we all agreed that there was no point in wearing them if you didn't wear them two at a time. Man, you were nothin' at my jr. high school if you didn't have at least two Swatch watches!

So--what do you miss about 1985?