Is it fair to say that young girls these days don’t know what it was like for us back in the 1980s? We suspect they can barely imagine a world that didn’t include mobile phones, streaming music, Snapchat, tablets and Instagram, such is the importance of those things in their young lives today. But such a world did exist, and we don’t know about you, but for us it only feels like yesterday…
Today we’re aiming to transport you back to the 1980s with twelve simple items that young girls these days could never, ever understand like we do. How many of the following items do you remember? And which holds the most special place in your heart?. Be sure to let us know by posting a comment, and please do share this post with your fellow 80s girls, so that they too can take a lovely, nostalgic trip down memory lane!
1. Get In Shape Girl Kits
Who remembers Get In Shape Girl? It was essentially a work out kit for young girls that came with a cassette tape, book, and exercise item such as mini dumbbells, a rhythmic ribbon or a skipping rope. The cassette and book both explained how to perform the required exercises, and you could even purchase some branded leg warmers to make you look like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance! Which Get In Shape Girl accessory did you own?
2. Ballerina Jewelry Boxes
We’re sure that many of you had a Jewelry Box, that once opened would play some beautiful music and reveal a lovely dancing ballerina that span round and round as many times as you had wound up the mechanism.
3. Clarks Magic Step Shoes
To young girls these days Clarks Magic Step Shoes probably look like an ordinary pair of school shoes, but you 80s girls know the secret. Because of course they contained a key hidden securely in the heel, opening up a whole world of magic possibilities.
4. Dairy Milk Chocolate Dispensers
Remember the days when you had to ask your parents before you could eat some Dairy Milk chocolate? Luckily some of us also owned an amazing Dairy Milk Chocolate Dispenser, which required that you enter a refundable 2p, yes 2p, and be rewarded with a small but tasty slice of gorgeous chocolate.
5. Door Plaques
The plaque we had on our bedroom door defined us back in the 1980s. It branded our room, ensuring that our prying parents and annoying siblings knew exactly who’s messy and poster adorned bedroom lay within.
6. Brown Brownie Uniforms
Yes, of course young girls these days still have a Brownie uniform, but it doesn’t even come close to matching the brilliantly brown number that we had to wear back in the 1980s!
7. Skip-Its
We’ve seen similar apparatus in modern day school playgrounds, but we long for the days when our Skip-It would count the number of rotations we were able to jump over. Can anyone remember what their record was?
8. Cartoon Lunch Boxes
Which cartoon character did you have on your lunch box? Many of us had Care Bears or My Little Pony, but do let us know if you can remember who was on yours!
9. Sweet Secrets
To many a modern day young girl these may look like ordinary dolls. But the true 80s kids among you will know that Sweet Secrets did indeed hold a secret, in that they also transformed into jewelry or makeup!
10. Pink Ghetto Blasters
It’s easy for young girls these days, being able to store their entire music collection on their mobile phone or even in the ‘cloud’. We had to purchase albums on cassettes and play them on massive, monstrous, brilliant Ghetto Blasters, which were especially amazing when they came in pink!
11. Colourful Bedspreads
Who was on your bedspread? Was it Care Bears? Maybe Strawberry Shortcake? Whatever or whoever it was that adorned your duvet cover, we bet that it was bold, colourful and beautiful!
12. Rainbow Heart Rubbers
Out of the large amount of beautiful stationery items that we had in our school pencil case, there is one item that holds a very special place in our heart. It was of course the rubber that came shaped as a heart and adorned with rainbow colours! Did you own one?