The Lacoste Polo and the Brooks Brothers Blazer

The prep kit, catalogued only as 1980s, is three garments:

Lacoste polo. Light blue, short-sleeved, logo on the front breast pocket

Brooks Brothers blazer. Linen, two-button, beige

Club Room trousers. Linen and cotton, made in Sri Lanka, high-waisted and pleated

The curators built it from film research, citing Andrew McCarthy's Blane in Pretty in Pink as the model — the wealthy, preppy half of that film's high school. That film came out in 1986, so the outfit is a mid-decade reconstruction rather than a dated garment.

The trousers are where this stands or falls. High waist, pleats, linen-cotton.

Rise is the specification to get right, and Flusser explains what turns on it: a low rise sits under the waist and fits closer through the seat and thigh, so you feel it holding on. A high rise hangs from the narrowest part of you, and the leg falls free from there.

The polo carries its logo on a pocket. Lacoste put a pocket on that model, and most polos since have dropped it.

Boat shoes or penny loafers go under it.

Where it went. School and campus. The Toledo Blade ran its explainer three weeks before term started.

How it was supposed to be worn.

Mike Steere wrote a Toledo Blade explainer on the look in August 1980, six years before that film. His line on the attitude:

"The idea is to wear a $250 blazer and $80 slacks like coveralls. Even if you got it last week, the prep ensemble should look as if you were born in it and that, at the time of your birth, your father was wearing the same thing."

The clothes had to be expensive enough to survive being treated as though they weren't. Linen and cotton oxford take that treatment and come back; fused acetate holds the crease you put in it. A crisp new blazer over a crisp new polo gets the first half right and misses the second.

Miami Vice, 1984: Linen and Bare Ankles

Start with what the clothes were for. Jodie Lynn Tillen dressed Don Johnson for the Miami Vice pilot and told The Hollywood Reporter what she was building:

"Everybody makes the mistake that Crockett was a fashionista. He was not. He wore a uniform to infiltrate the bad guys that dress like that."

Michael Mann's brief to Bambi Breakstone in season two was one line: it should look as if he woke up in the morning and threw his clothes on.

Producing that took a $7,000 clothing budget per episode and a costume department that kept his T-shirts in a heap on the floor so they'd crease properly.

In the pilot, which aired on NBC on 16 September 1984, he wears:

Peach linen sport jacket. Single-breasted, two-button, notch lapels, narrow-welted breast pocket, vertical side pockets, padded shoulders, plain cuffs, no vent

White cotton trousers. Double forward pleats, belted-strap side adjusters, on-seam side pockets, a button-through inset pocket over the right thigh, plain-hemmed bottoms

White calfskin oxfords. Four eyelets, plain toe

Carrera 5512 aviators, black matte frame, brown lenses In the same episode he wears white leather slip-ons perforated with eleven rows of holes down the vamp, on beige rubber soles. No socks with either pair.

You won't find a belt on him, and the trousers are why. They cinch with straps and buckles at the sides of the waistband. No loops sitting empty.

Under the jacket goes a plain T-shirt, no collar. The pilot keeps it pale; later episodes run aqua and bright blue.

The look shifted after season one. Breakstone travelled to Milan, Paris and London buying from European runways. For the early version, the reference is the pilot: American cuts, warm pastels, and shoes from Charles Jourdan, Sperry and To Boot.

The Velour Tracksuit of 1983

The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York ran a piece on 27 March 1983 about a hole in men's wardrobes. Geoffery Blythe, who ran a shop called the Red Barn and had an interest in selling the answer, described it to the reporter:

"We don't have loungewear; we have sleepwear — pajamas, nightshirts and robes. For lounging, a jogging outfit is good. Every college kid is wearing one; they can sit around the fraternity house in it, then go out for a beer without changing."

A shopkeeper saying every college kid wears one is making a sale as much as an observation, but his inventory backs the shape of it: pajamas, nightshirts and robes, and nothing between those and outdoor clothes. The tracksuit filled that gap.

The same article has a sales representative for the menswear designer Ron Chereskin describing his line of mauve, purple and blue cotton velour jogging suits, introduced that year in the $90 price range and sold out immediately.

Velour is the piece to get right. It's a cut pile, so the fibre ends stand up off the base cloth and catch light at an angle: run a hand one way and it darkens, the other way and it lifts. Modern trackies use flat brushed polyester, which is why the same cut still reads as gym kit.

Buy it as a set and wear it as a set. Chereskin sold his as a two-piece, jacket and trousers the same colour.

Where it went. Blythe drew the line himself: indoors all afternoon, then out for a drink without changing.

Risky Business, 1983: What a Varsity Jacket Was

The varsity jacket sold today and the one Tom Cruise wears in Risky Business are different garments.

Body. 1983, on screen boiled wool; sold now as a varsity jacket fleece, or melton at best.

Sleeves. 1983, on screen off-white leather, set in; sold now as a varsity jacket vinyl, or the same fleece.

Front. 1983, on screen seven snaps; sold now as a varsity jacket snaps, usually fewer.

Pockets. 1983, on screen slanted welt, hand; sold now as a varsity jacket patch, or none.

Trim. 1983, on screen ribbed knit, red banded black and white; sold now as a varsity jacket ribbed knit, one or two colours.

The film opened on 5 August 1983. The rest of the kit runs:

Oxford shirt. Pink cotton, button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket, button cuffs, box-pleated back with a locker loop

Levi's 501. Blue denim, button fly

Sperry Top-Siders. Brown leather moc-toe, white siped rubber soles

The oxford has a locker loop and a box pleat at the back, both 1950s Ivy details that survived into eighties prep. His Ray-Ban Wayfarers from the film sold at auction in December 2019.

The jeans are plain and straight: 501s, button fly, no wash and no distressing.

Where it went. School, and after school. Joel Goodson wears it to class and keeps it on into the evening. The jacket is a school varsity jacket and Joel Goodson is a high-school senior. Costume analysis of the film reads his wardrobe as Ivy-inspired throughout — OCBDs, Shetland sweaters, Princeton sweatshirts.

Why Top Gun's G-1 Isn't a 1940s G-1

Maverick's flight jacket in Top Gun, which opened on 16 May 1986, is a US Navy G-1 in dark brown goatskin, worn half-zipped over a white T-shirt and jeans.

The G-1 is a 1940s garment. The one in the film is not. There is a first-hand account of the difference.

Marlene Stewart designed the costumes for the 2022 sequel and had to rebuild the jacket. Cruise still owns a screen-worn original, by then more or less falling apart. Examining it she called it an eighties interpretation of the jacket, and named two things:

Padded shoulders. The shoulder line stands away from the body.

A blousy fit. Room through the body, gathered at the waistband.

To make a version that would read on screen now, she went back to the late 1940s, when the jacket was first issued.

Both of Stewart's markers show on a rail without trying anything on: a shoulder that stands proud, and slack through the middle.

Where it went. No dress code attached to this one. Under the jacket, a white crew-neck T-shirt and blue jeans.

The Mullet, the Flat Top, the Perm

Hair split along the same line as the clothes. Mullets ran through suburban and rural areas among working-class men. Business professionals went the other way: short, neatly groomed, sideburns kept very short.

One white-collar detail is worth knowing because it is deliberate and invisible until you look. The hairline at the nape was shaved straight across, producing an even line no head grows on its own.

The mullet. Short on top and sides, long at the back. Ask for a tight taper at the sides and length left in the back, layered.

The flat top. Cut level across the top so the silhouette squares off, sides tapered close, line-ups at the temples and nape. It needs a barber every two or three weeks, since the top stops reading as flat the moment it grows unevenly.

Feathered layers. Cut to lift and curve, styled away from the face. Volume high, texture light.

The perm. Took over around 1982 after straight hair had carried the first years of the decade.

Sideburns. Back in 1984, and cut thinner and shorter than the 1970s version. They usually came with a mullet.

The high-top fade arrived at the end of the decade and belongs as much to the 1990s.

Everything here ran on product. Mousse for volume, gel for hold, hairspray over the top of both.

High Waist, Pleats, Padded Shoulder

Four specifications repeat across outfits that agree on nothing else.

High rise. The prep trousers are cut high-waisted. Crockett's hold themselves up at the natural waist with side straps. No belt needed.

Pleats. The prep trousers are pleated. Crockett's carry double forward pleats, folded towards the fly. Flusser gives the test for whether a pleated trouser is cut right: stand up in it, and the pleat should stay closed. A pleat that opens is telling you the thigh needs more room. The pleats are there to hold that width and still let the crease run.

Shoulder. Padded on Crockett's linen jacket, on Maverick's G-1, and at the set-in sleeve head of the varsity jacket. Stewart's phrase for it was an eighties interpretation.

A plain trouser. Whatever is going on above the waist, the leg below it stays plain: white cotton, khaki, or indigo denim, and no pattern in any of them.

Alan Flusser published Clothes and the Man in 1985, and his rules on proportion are the clearest available. On a waist of 30 to 34 inches, the leg should measure 21 to 22 inches around at the knee and 18 to 19½ inches at the bottom. Cuffs run 1⅝ inches deep on a man of five foot ten or under, 1¾ inches on anyone taller.

Go measure a pair you already own. Lay them flat, run a tape across the leg opening, double it. Anything much under 18 inches sits outside the range.

One more of his rules gives a ratio. It holds whatever your shoulders measure: a lapel should reach just short of the halfway mark between the collar and the shoulder line. Put a finger on your collar seam and another on the end of your shoulder. The lapel edge wants to stop a little inside the midpoint between them. That fraction is what keeps a wide lapel in period rather than in fancy dress.

Flusser was arguing against the decade. He called the 1930s the most elegant period in menswear and noted approvingly that collar proportions were returning to more traditional widths. Treat his measurements as classic tailoring, useful here as a brake on the wider end of the decade.

Wearing an Eighties Kit Today

Each kit has a range, and they barely overlap.

The G-1 — weekend, anywhere with no dress code. Transfers intact. Leather over an ordinary shirt and jeans was outerwear in 1984 and it is outerwear now.

The varsity jacket — the same, with one caution. Also intact, though a varsity jacket carries a school's letter and reads as borrowed if it isn't yours.

The linen kit — a warm evening out. Built for exactly that. The thing to keep is the belt-free waistband, since the whole line depends on nothing cutting across it.

The tracksuit — indoors, and out for one drink. Blythe already drew that boundary and the range ends where he said it ended.

The preppy kit — anything smarter. A campus outfit then, and it lands near the middle of a smart-casual range now.

The substitution that comes up in every case is the trouser. A modern pair starts lower on the body and runs narrower through the leg, and swapping one in flattens the silhouette the decade was after: loose over the chest, closed at the waist, open again over the hip, narrow once more at the ankle.

The Sport Coat Split, 1984 to 1987

The decade split by age. Men over about thirty had pulled back from seventies flamboyance into something close to 1940s and 1950s classics: conservative suiting, pastel sportswear, Hawaiian shirts. Men under twenty-five went bold, bright and athletic, in layers of denim, baggy jackets and workout clothes. An older man in 1984 was not choosing between prep and rocker, he was buying a sport coat.

Sport coats crossed every one of these looks, and how you wore one placed you by age as much as anything else.

Older man. Dress shirt, tie, the jacket buttoned. Wool or wool blend in winter, linen or silk in summer, acetate or rayon lining. A polo underneath was the concession to a casual day.

Younger man. The jacket loose and unlined, sleeves pushed up, and underneath a T-shirt, a tropical camp shirt, a Henley, a sweater, or a sweatshirt. Unlined is what lets the sleeve stay where you push it.

If you're copying a photograph and the man in it is over forty, the shirt and tie underneath come with the jacket.

Colour split the same way by 1987, going by the captions on period catalogue pages: the bright sport coat went to mature men with a dress shirt and tie under it, the yellow and green ones to the young with casual shirts and trousers.

Stonewash, Acid Wash, and the 1983 Sears Catalogue

The 1983 Sears and JCPenney catalogues sold stonewashed jeans with copy that explained the process without dressing it up:

"Some of these jeans are literally thrown into the washer with stones to beat the stiffness out of them."

What the copy leaves out is which stone. Pumice, tumbling in an industrial drum against the cloth until the surface dye lifts.

Knowing that separates two things that look similar on a rail. A stonewashed pair from 1983 is uniformly softened and lightly faded overall. Acid wash, which came later in the decade, is mottled and high-contrast, made by tumbling denim with pumice soaked in chlorine.

The Risky Business kit specifies 501s in plain indigo with a button fly.

Popped Collars and Rolled Socks

All recorded, all reversible, all worth getting exactly right.

Collar up. On the polo, flip the whole collar, both points included. A knit collar holds the fold; a woven one with fused interlining springs back.

Sweater over the shoulders. Arms crossed and knotted at the sternum, body hanging down your back. Cotton or a fine wool holds the knot; a chunky hand-knit slides off.

Socks bunched at the calf. Tube socks, white cotton, ribbed, pushed down into a roll that sits below the knee. The two stripes at the top end up inside the roll.

Jeans tucked into socks. Acid-wash tucked in at the ankle, over a high-top.

Sleeves pushed up the forearm. On a linen or unlined blazer, where the cloth will hold a fold. A lined wool sleeve pushes down again within the hour.

Ankles bare or rolled. With loafers, no socks at all. With trainers, white tube socks rolled below the knee.

Members Only, Aviators, Parachute Pants

Three garments turn up across all of the above and sit outside every one of them.

The Members Only jacket. Zipped, epaulettes on the shoulder, a strap and snaps at the stand collar, ribbing at the cuff and hem, and the tag stitched onto the breast pocket. Nylon mostly, leather at the top of the range. It crossed every group in this piece and belonged to none of them.

Aviator sunglasses. Crockett wears Carreras and Joel Goodson wears Wayfarers, but the aviator is the frame the decade is remembered by, and Top Gun in 1986 is why.

Parachute pants. Nylon, zipped pockets down the leg, tapered hard at the ankle. They belong to the early-decade breakdance and new wave end rather than to any of the five.

None of the three is documented here at the level of the kits above, and this is where the evidence in this piece runs out.

Check These Before You Go Out

Put two fingers between your waistband and your navel. If they fit, the trouser is sitting too low — the waistband belongs at the narrowest point of your torso, which on most men is level with the navel or just above it.

Press the bony end of your collarbone and slide your thumb outward until the bone stops. The jacket's shoulder seam should be under your thumb when it stops, and the padding should end there too. Seam past the bone by half an inch or more is a modern cut.

Look down at your shoe. If you can see ankle between the hem and the shoe, the leg is too narrow to sit with the rest.

Count the signature pieces on you: linen blazer, peach sport jacket, varsity jacket, G-1, velour top. One is the number. Two of them at once is two outfits fighting, and a varsity jacket over a linen blazer is a high school and a campus at the same time.