Here is a pic of me at my 21st birthday party... smack in the middle of that notorious fashion decade. You're lucky it's not in colour, or you might be blinded by the gold colour of my glittery outfit.
Big hair, big shoulders, big nails, big cocktail.... *shudder*....
And here I am with my peeps, with the Sydney Town Hall behind us. My "uniform" was always to wear a blazer... unless it was boiling hot in which case it was a leotard under linen pants (or my favourite Stuart Membry shorts, M! Sorry.. can't find a pic of those!)....
I spent the end of the '80's living in the US. And I dyed my head dark brown (the one and only time in my life) to see in the new decade. This is me in NYC on the last day of the '80's....
I spent the beginning of the '80's in the whirl of the Sydney rock 'n roll scene, and the modelling scene. Superficiality at it's best. It's a time that I doubt will come again (way before grunge... it really was all champagne and cocaine) and I guess I was lucky to be a part of it, but it wasn't all happiness.
I then moved in to the corporate world.... when corporate greed was at it's zenith.... and life was all about long lunches and even longer expense accounts. It's quite amazing to think back upon it with the perspective of today's economy.
I'm still not quite sure why I had such a strong urge to leave my country, but I did. I happily exchanged designer outfits for t-shirts and cargo shorts and travelled from Backpacker Lodge to Backpacker Lodge. I was ribbed by my new friends about being the only backpacker travelling with a suitcase and a blow-dryer! Perhaps that's why I'm so extremely the other way these days!
The best thing about the '80's for me? The friends that I made in San Francisco. They still count amongst my closest friends today. I'm not sure if it's because we were thrown together in the horror of the aftermath of the '89 earthquake, or if it was kismit that put us all in that backpackers lodge at the same time. Whatever it was, I'm eternally grateful for it.
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