Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Advertisements for Myer (1983)


Myer was (and still is) a department store based in Melbourne and with branches all around Australia.  I found these advertisements for the store in a 1983 issue of Vogue Australia.  


Some of these outfits obviously owe a debt to the New Romantics.  The picture above shows the model dressed like a cross between a pirate or a cossack.


Speaking as someone who was around in 1983, the hair and makeup on these models is clearly exaggerated.   You would have been unlikely to encounter anyone quite like this on the streets—though you might have found someone trying to emulate these looks in a nightclub or at an expensive party.


Some slightly more subdued clothes here...


... And some late-70s, early 80s classics.

The thing to note about all these clothes is they weren't cheap.  (Who takes out full page advertisements for cheap clothes in Vogue?)  They were created in France and Germany and imported by Myer to Australia.  The potential buyers of these fashions would have been well-to-do women, almost certainly a bit older and a bit more conservative than the models wearing them in these ads!

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