What can be said of Women’s Fashion at MWC in the 1980s?
Well in a word it was…simple. One could even say boring.
Today, in the 21st century, we have developed a certain image of what women’s fashion in the 1980s “should” be like: shoulder pads, big hair, and poofy sleeves. However, we have developed this image of the 1980s from our own observations of popular culture from the time period via MTV music videos and John Hughes movies. The common denominator for many of these music videos and films is that they depicted HIGH SCHOOL aged students wearing the Madonna/Cyndi Lauper/Olivia Newton John inspired fashions of the time period.
In reality, and not to overly generalize, the female population at Mary Washington College had matured past the point of total emulation of pop stars. These were young adult women attending college to earn college degrees and continue their higher education. In much the same way that hundreds of students can be seen walking to 9 am classes in sweatpants now in 2018, these women did not have time for frilly costume type fashion.
University of Mary Washington. The Battlefield. Winston-Salem, North Carolina: 1986. University of Mary Washington Archives. https://archive.org/stream/battlefield198269univ#page/n0/mode/2up/search/Battlefield+1986. Accessed on April 8, 2018.
Yes, some of them still had some…unfortunate hairstyles.
But for the most part, searching through a decade of yearbooks resulted in year after year of plain pants, colorful blouses, and some sensible shoes.
Overall, the female students of MWC did not find an necessity to express their identity through their fashion aesthetic. A large majority of students had reached a stage in their lives where further development of their personal identity came from introspection rather than from over-sized hair bows.