We’re all familiar with the theory fashion is cyclical. Our sartorial predilections take about two decades to complete a full orbit, so we’re currently in the thick of 90s-revivalism: you know, skeevy sunnies, chokers, straight-cut bangs and chunky heels. Y’all looking (and acting) like Daria out there, fam.
Still, the reinterpretation of 80s ephemera continues to have an ardent following, and you needn’t look further than vaporwave and normcore as evidence. Like some post-post-post-modern bastardisation of pre-internet culture, throngs of humans in 2016 are still clinging to that gormless, primary-palette aesthetic.
This article is for those people. Like Halley’s Comet, which fired past the Earth in the late 80s in a blaze of cosmic glory, this catalogue of McDonald’s teamwear has once again burst into the planet’s collective conscience. Originally sent out to managers in 1987 in preparaton for ’88, this 64-page time capsule is essentially proto-streetwear.
The grotesque / amazing collision of American capitalism with everyday life is almost enough to reanimate the corpse of Ronald Reagan. Seriously. This shit is wild:
And this heat. Note that burger cap:
If you want to bathe yourself in the most extreme example of pre-9/11 consumerism available online, feel free to scope out the entire gallery over on Flickr user Jason Liebig’s page.
Source and photo: Jason Liebig / Flickr / Boing Boing.
