Nothing screams teenage girl in the 80’s, more than this.

Gen X woman I am labelled.

I was born in the 70’s, and lived my teenage years in the 80’s.

I lived in a small country town in northern NSW as I entered high school years.

Everyone knew each other and without mobile phones and the internet to entertain us, if we weren’t at school we were hanging out with our friends.

My mum was a hairdresser with her own salon. I would work there Saturday mornings to earn enough money to buy Dolly magazine every month.

Dolly magazine had a section in it “Dear Dolly”, this was the only way as girls we learnt anything. “One of my boobs is bigger than the other, am I normal?”

There was sealed section every now and then, the excitement and embarrassment combined all in one, as I would pay the newsagent owner, both of us knowing that whatever was in that sealed section was the first thing I would find out.

Bubble Skirts - I had to have one, all the girls were wearing them. They do say you should keep all your clothes as they will return one day to fashion. I do wish I had as these are now back in and my daughters now 30 and 28 can’t believe I used to wear them.

Jelly Sandals - These today still look as cheap and ugly as they did back then lol, I mean what could be worse than plastic shoes worn in summer. The slip and slide effect and the smell.

Stirrup Pants - These deserve a special mention, once again I had to have them, we would wear them with socks over the top and god forbid if you had the wrong size, you could bet every time you sat down your pants were coming down with you.

Fluoro Everything - If you think today, you have nailed the fluoro brief at festivals, think again we wore it head to toe and it didn’t matter if nothing matched.

Acid Wash Denim - It had to be complete attire, jeans, skirts and jackets all at once.

The list goes on:

• Shoulder pads

• Lace fingerless gloves

• Scrunchies

• Banana clips

• Perms in fact Spiral perms - the tighter the better lol

• We didn’t have hair straighteners, so we ironed our hair with clothing irons on the ironing board or the kitchen bench.

• Butterfly clips, you know the ones the hairdressers use in the salon to section your hair - we wore those as hair fashion.

• Crimped hair, I loved my crimper lol

• Walkmans that had tiny little uncomfortable headphones attached to them

• Cassette players - that we always had a pen handy to wind the tape back in when it was chewed up.

• Thin metal gold and silver bracelets that we could not get enough of you were the absolute coolest if you had them all up your arm.

• Big, teased fringes that stood up on end with bottles of hairspray in it.

• There was no such thing as perfume as a teenager in my day, but Impulse body spray was it, we would have in our school bags and pull it out like it was a flex.

• Bike shorts with oversized tees, it’s all back in now but we were cool before our time.

• We did aerobics and wore actual leotards over tights and leg warmers.

• We would pass notes in class.

• We hung out at the roller-skating rink that was where it was happening, music, friends, making out, honestly some of the best times.

• We had school socials.

• In summer the local public pool was the only place to be, no one actually had backyard pools, so we would head to pool meet up with our friends, lather our bodies in baby oil, no hats and spend the day.

• Let’s not forget to mention the Blue Light Disco, this was honestly the highlight as a teenager, everyone who was anyone was going to be there.

Now let’s talk about the teenage girl in the 80’s bedroom.

I had wall to wall posters from Dolly magazine and Smash Hits magazine of all my crushes. A cassette player, dressing table full of hair spray, brushes and accessories. Stuffed teddies, a diary with a little key lock.

Boys, dating and communicating.

Remember we didn’t have mobile phones, just the good old landline that was plugged into the wall and NOT cordless.

If your friends rang or worse a boy, everyone in the family could hear the conversation as the phone was in the loungeroom and the kitchen.

We had to make plans before we left school of a day because there was usually no other means of communication outside of school, unless you were hanging out.

Music and movies.

Rage and Countdown were a regular Saturday morning highlight and if we wanted music there was no Spotify you had to buy cassettes which we couldn’t afford, or we would buy blank cassettes and record music off the radio, on our tape decks.

Let’s talk books I read as teenage girl in the 80’s, because what we were reading-was fucking wild.

This is where my love of reading began.

There was no such thing as online shopping, so the town library was my best friend.

Sweet Valley High books were my first love. Imagining a life with a twin sister, having a joined shared bathroom and a car between them, Elizabeth and Jessica’s parents just seemed so cool.

Then came The Baby-Sitters Club books, I mean honestly could there be anything cooler than a close bunch of girlfriends starting their own babysitting club business.

Sweet Dreams was when things really started to heat up, these books were so sexy to a 13yr old with very little experience with boys.

Around the age of 14 everyone was talking about the VC Andrews series “Flowers in the Attic”, from the cover it looked harmless but boy was that something I had never had any awareness about, and I was hooked-who the hell was checking what we were reading? I mean If You Know, You Know.

After those books, the only way was up and onto Jackie Collins. Her books were hot and steamy and where I wanted my mind to live. I read these imagining I was Lucky Santangelo.

Suddenly I had gone from reading about Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield’s teenage dramas to sex, affairs, money, power and scandal. What more could a young impressionable girl want.

These books were like currency between teenage girls. They were passed around and dog eared more than any football ever was.

What I miss about being a teenage girl in the 80’s.

I mean I absolutely do not want to be a teenager again-fuck that. The freedom of being unreachable is fascinating when you compare it with teenagers today.

You left the house and nobody could contact you.

Mum could not track my location.

My friends couldn’t message me.

Nobody photographed every stupid-dumb thing we did and upload it anywhere.

But then there was the lovely physicality of it all.

We read magazines.

We passed notes at school.

We rewound cassette tapes.

We waited for the phone to ring.

When we went somewhere we hoped our crush would be there, but we had no way of knowing.

We didn’t know we were GenX.

We were just teenage girls.

And bloody hell, we had fun.

If reliving the 80’s as a teenager made you smile and you have some memories you want to share, drop them in the comments.

Unapologetically,

Yazz xx