Worst Decade Aesthetic

It's hard to top the '70s for ugly clothes, decor -- everything.

But the '40s clothes and hair, especially for women, were pretty awful.

The 80s “homeless slob couture”? Do you mean the 90s? I remember the 80s being rather glam. Shoulder pads, big hair, heavy eye makeup and jewelry for women. Teenagers were dressing like Madonna, or super preppy, a few “punk” looks, New Romantic. I had a pair of ripped jeans, but that was at the end of the 80s. Girls were wearing tight Guess jeans, Forenza sweaters with the V in the back and ropes of fake pearls. Boys in surfer shorts and checkered Vans, popped the collars of their polo shirts, some hip hop looks. I don’t remember people cultivating a homeless look at all. I remember people dressing up more than anything.

I know this makes me sound like an old man, but I think the popular fashion of today is pretty bad. Sweats and yoga pants everywhere....so boring. People say 70s fashion was terrible but at least it wasn't dull.

The 80’s was over the top, fun and tacky as hell. It was great.

I grew up during the 70's, it was weird and everyone seemed dirty and unkempt especially the early part. And yes fashion was very interesting with avocado green and gold appliances. My house was built in 1965 and we had TURQUOISE kitchen appliances.

The 1980s produce the worst hair, make up, fashion, home decor and music of the 20th century.

I am embarrassed for anyone that actively participated in the 1980s.

I can't imagine anything more ugly than '70s fashions. What ever were people thinking?

I suspect this is a bit like the blind men and the elephant. For me the 70s was exposed brick, ferns, Gemma Taccogna papier mache hat heads and vanity accessories, old movie posters, boutique clothing, Aubrey Beardsly and art nouveau, etc. I actually don't remember much avocado green, burn orange, and mustard. I remember more hot pink, orange, and yellow or blues, turquoise, and lime green.

Oddly, I really could not define 1990s or 2000s style. A lot of it was just so beige and safe. I guess the 1990s was transitional fully upholstered furniture. upholstered in a natural linen. Sisal rugs. May be a French deco leather club chair. It was as if everyone wanted to live in a hotel lobby or a house that was "styled" for sale in the safest way possible.

I vote for the 1980s

'70s.

More '70s.

Yes that heavy dark furniture and the gigantic TV consoles with the stereo and radio all in one. Some where even bigger than this one.

Decorators and architects of the seventies were so keen on earth tones, organic textures, and heavy rounded shapes that I refer to it as "The Cow-Pie Aesthetic".

The 00s was the worst. All the tackiness of the 80s with extreme slut overtones.

It's a battle between the earth tones of the '70s and the acid wash of the '80s.

This si the 1970s that I remember. None of the heavy brown furniture. And yes, needlepoint pillows were quite the thing.

More 70s. Think Pink!

That damn birdcage was everywhere

I love communist architecture

I still love 70s design.

As someone who lived through the 70's, you don't know that you're in a fashion crime era when you're in it. Until years later when there's photographic proof.

R18, you are probably joking, but I actually like a lot of what was done particularly the apt blocks in Rostock.

R20 nails it.

1969 - 1976

The demarcations by actual decades just don't work very well. In every decade, the beginning and end were very different aesthetically., almost unrecognizable as the same decade.

R24, we have discussed that on DL many, many times.

The 70s and 90s were far worse than the 80s in my opinion. The 70s had awful fashion and interiors were fucking hideous. The 80s had awful hair but some of those clothes don't look completely awful. The 90s fashion was even worse than the 80s--especially that grunge-era fratboy look and the whole baggy jeans thing.

Sorry but every woman in the 1950's looked like a grandmother, including Grace Kelly. Those ugly hoop skirts and hideous pancake hats and short tight curls aged women 30 years. At least in the 1970's people looked young and not geriatric.

Then that dumb bitch OP should have known better, R25.

R24

Either the 50s or 60s were the best decade for men's fashion (mainly thinking of the suits here). Women's would have to be the 60's, mainly for the later part, I think.

The Nineties were fabulously dressed at GAP!

The 80s was the tackiest decade EVER. The seventies was tacky too, but in an amusing kind of way. The 80s were just too much, and ALL of it was grotesquely overdone extravagant overblown tacky.

The 2005 Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan era was almost as bad as the 2010s awful skinny jeans/leggings era.

For clothing and interior design, the 70s. Orange velvet sofas, hideous tables like R10.

Architecture the 80s, with the 90s running a very close second.

60s and 70s architecture was really horrible too--it's like their goal was to make everything look as ugly and cold as possible.

All that fucking orange in the 70s. Gross.

R27 Well, I NEVER!

The '00s were the beginning of low-waisted jeans. They were comfortable because they did't cut into your abdomen. However, women became delusional about what it actually looked when they wore low-waisted jeans. The term "muffin top" (to describe uncontained, overhanging fat) was coined during this era.

[quote] I’ll say the 80s was the worst with the emergence of homeless slob couture[.]

OP, that absolutely does not describe the '80s. The '80s was about sprayed hair, colorful makeup, buttoned-up shirts, shoulder pads, high-waisted pants, etc.

Boy George's loose-shirted look was part of the '80s. However, loose did not mean slob.

2000s were the worst, but the '90s were pretty dire as well. I don't even know what the 2010s will be remembered for. The Instathot look?

The 2010s: Ugly hipster beards; tattoos; IntaHos; the incredibly bland home interiors of beiges and greys; young people looking much older than they are due to plastic surgery or adopting the homeless man look.

[quote]I’ll say the 80s was the worst with the emergence of homeless slob couture

Yeah, that was definitely the ‘90s.

[quote] The '00s were the beginning of low-waisted jeans.

That reminds me of that hilarious episode of Curb your enthusiasm with that one girl who wore really tacky, revealing clothing. She wasn't attractive which is what made it so offensive and funny.

[quote]I don't even know what the 2010s will be remembered for.

Giant fake Kardashian asses.

Omg the fake butts. Monstrous.

[quote]I don't even know what the 2010s will be remembered for.

And women with swollen, inflated hatchet-faces.

The 1980s were the worst. The 1970s were better than the 1980s for design.

Forget about the middle class Sears catalogue aesthetic, the 1970s still had some great industrial design and architecture.

And yes there was the whole leisure suit, platform shoe thing going on in the 70s, but there was also a whole movement of great looks. Think Halston. Glam and sleek.

The 1980s on the other hand were totally hopeless. Hideous post modernism, Memphis. The Dallas, Dynasty aesthetic. There was no good "high" design.

The 80s are the most recognizable decades in terms of style because it seems like everyone adopted some form of 80s-ness

I always imagine houses looking like the one Bette Midler and Danny DeVito lived in in "Ruthless People"

That or Miami Vice.

But when I look at old family photos, it's always easy to spot the 80s photos.

50s-60s-70s all sort of blend in together. At some point there were minidresses and macrame and men had big sideburns but when that happened is hard to pin down.

Since the 2000's, everything's been a unimaginative hodgepodge of stereotypes of other eras put in a rather unremarkable pastiche . It's so banal and lacking in anything remotely creative.

And the influence of white trash in the culture has been the worst part. Flip flops and yoga pants being taken seriously as fashionwear? Sheesh.

I loved 80s fashion ,but the interior design sucked . I liked a lot of 70s interiors,but the clothes were pretty awful . I actually liked 90s fashion somewhat but the decor was awful. If you look hard enough theres something to like about every decade. But Id give my left nut to go back to the 80s,I had a helluva good time !

Your poll doesn't go back far enough.

R7 no imagination is necessary. All you have to do is look at this picture.

Eighties fashions are bad, but I've sort of forgiven the decade on that front. that was the last decade where people tried to look sophisticated and grownup, since then fashion has been all about looking young and trashy.

I'm one of the few people who liked the décor of the 1980s at all, not that I like it much. I can certainly see why most sane people would hate the Memphis Design look of the era, but it's fun and colorful and makes me think of Tim Burton films when Tim Burton films were good. I'll take Memphis over Greige any day.

Here, this is the sort of thing I mean when I say that the 80s were the last decade when people tried to look sophisticated.

If you look at the films from the era, yes, people in their twenties look older, although not as badly as they did in the fifties where teenagers looked like they were in their forties. In the eighties, fashionable people all aspired to look thirtyish, rich, and worldly, which better in retrospect than it did at the time. The fashions of that era were all pretty ghastly, at least, until you compare them to an era where everyone's trying to look like spoiled teenagers.

Paris must’ve got an ass implant because she had none in 2005.

“emergence” of homeless slob couture

There is a keyword there, you Queens. It was indeed the beginning of sloppy dressing, not everyone dressed like Michael Douglas & Darryl Hannah in Wall Street.

The 80s had some of the worst hairstyles and fashion. Some of the decor is nostalgic though. 70s decor and fashion was also pretty ugly, but at the same time comfy and aesthetic pleasing.

[quote]70s decor and fashion was also pretty ugly, but at the same time comfy and aesthetic pleasing.

Seriously?

No wonder schoolyard bullying peaked in the 70s:

The 70's seems like the favorite decade for artsy/intellectual Boomers. Much from that decade has aged as badly as 80s stuff--mainly the movies. But 70s music does have more long-lasting appeal than 80s music (even though I like the latter more).

Having grown up in the 90's, I'd take the 70's and 80's style any day of the week. I used to love my grandmother's very 70's interior of her house. The 80's still leaked into the early 90's when I was just starting out and I was really sad when it slowly started disappearing to make way for all the new 90's fashions and interiors. I see certain movies or pictures from the 70's and 80's and think it looked like people had more fun when it came to fashion and interior decorating. These days, everything seems beige and bland.

Does anyone remember the Gay Grey trend in the 1990s (?). Grey walls, lots of grey rubber matting instead of carpets, grey flannel used as upholstery, lots of stainless steel. Everyone was stripping that paint off of their steel fire doors to the raw metal and coating them with polyurethane to prevent rust. A lot of the old pistachio green steel office furniture suffered the same fate. You couldn't tell if it was an apartment or a morgue.

The 2020s are starting out really bad with the skinny-ripped-jeans hybrid.

R58 I lived through the 70s. No one was wearing that stuff unless you were one of the Jackson Five.

I think most people are wearing sweatpants in 2020 R62

Not like most of us are actually leaving the house much.

"Does anyone remember the Gay Grey trend in the 1990s (?). Grey walls, lots of grey rubber matting instead of carpets, grey flannel used as upholstery, lots of stainless steel. "

Oh, is THAT where the vile gray-and-neutrals everywhere trend originated, The Gays!

I turned homophobic the instant I found that out!

Anything that is both Southwestern and pastel should be thrown on a raging bonfire.

My parents bedroom was very similar to this

I forgot to add that’s 1970s

R51 that photo is an excellent example of how much the begging/endings of decade aesthetics. If the photo weren't dated I'd still be wondering late 80s, or early 90s?

A lot of music during the 70s was pretty great. I just got tired of the color orange and the ugliest greens everywhere.

I’d say the 90s we’re even worse than the 80s just cuz boring!!

That looks more like a wine cellar than the 70s R67

Actually pretty cool

Its always the early part of the decades the are terrible. For me the early 90s were by far the worst especially in fashion with 00s a close second.

Early 70’s, horrid color palette but chic.

Early 80’s not bad at all. I don’t mind the shoulder pads and the big hair that follower either.

Early 90’s , just puketastic.

Early 2000’s , awful just awful.

The 80s were fabulous! A time when fashion meant something. Kids made an effort to get dressed. Then, the mid 90s up to the early 2000s came and looking like dirty smelly crack heads became “the look”. One word.. “Dynasty” bitches

"The Facts of Life" series is a good chronicle of the transformation of aesthetic of the late 70s through the 80s.

The floral dresses of the early 90s and the neon slut outfits of the early 00s were revolting for completely opposing reasons. Kind of funny seeing how in 10 years, fashion changed that drastiaclly.

70s were definitely the worst for fashion. That's when polyester really came into being.

R81, it is also when vintage clothing and ethnic clothing came into fashion. Yes, there was polyester double knit, but there was also Liberty of London and a tonne of cottons from India. Madras was popular as well as Indian print cottons (highly flammable) and Indian embroideries, particularly those with bits of mirror worked into the design.

'70s fashions were groovy!

I would place the rise of India-ethnic fabric in the late 60s, Summer of Love. Madras was very preppy early 60s.

The 20's and 30's because the men wore dumpy suits and looked like shit. Not a hint of VPL to be found.

[quote]—Also, everyone back then was a fucking idiot.

As opposed to people today, as reflected by who occupies the White House?

It's very easy to mock a trend by showing its most extreme example. But in the 80s most people didn't actually live in Pee-Wee's playhouse, nor did everyone in the 60s dress like Emma Peel.

However, it is true that for four months in 1977 absolutely everyone dressed like Annie Hall.

What r87 is true. Also, one needs to consider when something became mainstream. The seed may have been planted at the end of one decade, but it did not come to full flower until the following decade.

Also, there certainly was some economic stratification. I have no memory of the clunky, heavy, brown furniture of the 1970s. Nor do the pages from JC Penny and Sears resonate with me*. My world in the 1970s was very different. I suspect that those who really had money, had another, very different image of the 1970s

*Well, to be specific, I associate the brown/orange esthetic with Germany in the 1970s, not the USA.

I loved the 1970s.

If I had a large house With a couple of extra rooms I would duplicate this room and use it as a sitting room or office.

I like the tight, grey trousers the guys in this vid from 1974 are wearing.

The 2020s will be the worst. No money = no fun.

The 1980s aesthetic was 1950s Populuxe on acid.

In the 80s I thought the 70s was ridiculous. Looking back, the 70s was more daring than the 80s. Awful hair and clothing in the 80s as well as home decor. The 80s were as bad as the 40s; ridiculous hair and fashion for women, but I do love the double breasted men's suits from that decade.

The early 80’s were kind of cool things went off the rails around 86

The 70s and 80s that I knew, everyone was wearing chinos, top siders, button down oxford shirts, Harris tweed jackets.

Low-waisted jeans were popular the 00s, but not in the 2010s, I don't believe?

The 1970s and 2010s were similar in that they both had a pretty consistent aesthetic the whole decade.

Having lived in the 70s and 80s I can vouch for the fact that the 80s were far worse.

Also my dream house is the Brady’s house in the Brady Bunch

The 80s were the worst! Perms, shoulder pads, fashion in general. The 70s were sexy though. Bell bottoms and all. Freaking awesome!

[quote]I’ll say the 80s was the worst with the emergence of homeless slob couture,

That was not the 80's, it was the 70's. As someone said above, everyone looked like a slob, unwashed with cheap ripped jeans and cutoffs for shorts. Lots of matted down hair, shaggy dog look. Interior design was even worse. Even the cars were ugly.

When you think of what a classic "Stoner" AKA "Pot Head" looks like, think 1970s.

I hate that in the 2010s, 'alternative' culture was rather rigid and about expensive boutique fashion. There was nothing rather alternative about it, but it still passed itself off as 'indie' as opposed to rich kid aesthetic.

Give me grunge with its second hand clothes and cheap basics that anyone could go with.

I wish I had a photo of myself wearing elephant bell bottoms, corduroy platform shoes, Rayon print shirt, puka necklace, and feathered hair parted down the middle. Of course, I would be sitting on the plaid sofa that was fashioned to look like it was once a shipping crate sitting on the orange shag carpeting, with a faux Tiffany lamp hanging from the ceiling. Sigh.....

My family's avocado fridge, blue shag rug and gold curtains ruined my life.

The 70s were the worst for sure.

The 2010s will also be known for women squeezing themselves into dresses too small for them, so they look like a sausage about to escape its casing, drag queen makeup, and wearing evening wear during the day, or as I have often thought of it: the Russian Prostitute Look.