Book review: Fifty fashion looks that changed the 1980s Big hair and shoulder pads vs Miuccia Prada and John Galliano....a new book charts the lows and highs of the 1980s A new book, Fifty Fashion Looks That Changed The 1980s, is out today and will give those of us who cut our fashionable teeth during the era of bubble perms and men wearing eye-shadow a delicious trip down memory lane. It is the latest in the series written by Paula Reed (former style director of Grazia) and in conjuction with the Design Museum, London. Reed has already examined the fashion looks that changed the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In this book, she chooses her memorable moments from fashion, pop culture, television, music and film. Reed's most important moments from a fashion standpoint include Prada's black nylon bag, launched in 1980, which was the first proper It Bag (ironic of course as the whole point was to create an item representing the anti-thesis of mainstream 1980s fashion excess). Miuccia Prada, a political science graduate and avowed feminist, chose utilitarian black nylon for the bag, which was, inevitably, a huge hit. Four years later she launched her first ready-to-wear collection. Dallas and Dynasty get a mention as everyone who watched them knows they managed to distil everything that was peculiar to 1980s: big jewellery, fur, pearls, gowns and enough Elnett hairspray to cause an explosion. The costume designer Nolan Miller was inundated with fan mail and in 1984 launched her own collection at Bloomingdale's in New York. But as Reed shows, the 1980s weren't just about bad fashion. It was also the decade that saw the start of illustrious careers including Ralph Lauren, Issey Miyake, Jean Paul Gaultier, Azzedine Alaïa and John Galliano. Even Rei Kawakubo, the avant-garde queen of minimalism (who is about to open a new Dover Street Market in New York), found the 1980s an inspiration of sorts. Her clothes, initially denounced as 'post-apocalyptic' came to represent a new way of seeing fashion as art and questioned the entire way we, and particularly women, presented themselves to the world. Fifty Fashion Looks That Changed the World, by the Design Museum and Paula Reed (Conran Octopus, £12.99) octopusbooks.co.uk