These Incredible Photos Show What Shopping Malls Looked Like In 1989

The eighties were a time of bright colours, classic movies and questionable dance moves. It was a time of boom and bust, happiness and hardship, sophistication and stupidity. So many great things, or at least memorable things, came out of this decade. No wonder we look back at it so fondly.

Anything that happened after the eighties is too recent to feel properly nostalgic about. But this ten year span of light, life and bad hair days provides a slice of recent history we can all marvel at and learn from, so let’s take a look at the shopping mall where we can observe the world and his wife of yesteryear. These photographs by Michael Galinsky provide us with a unique perspective on life in the eighties. So let’s dim the lights, soften the focus and drift into a trip down memory lane.

1. The decade when consumerism first took off, Nike and Adidas ruled the streets

2. Like now, girls were generally better looking than their mothers

3. They had “preppy” down to a T

4. There was always an annoying loud girl in the group

5. Jocks dressed properly and were proud of their school team

6. There was often some overlap between hairstyles and horror films

7. Jacket designs could be similarly horrifying

8. Mr Motivator impersonators were everywhere

9. Men wearing their daughters’ clothes was normal

10. Offensive T-shirts contained far fewer swear words

11. Children often got stuck in escalators

12. Old people smoked like chimneys and people didn’t harangue them with warnings about cancer

13. Marijuana hadn’t been invented though, so instead people smoked plants

14. TV was better but TVs were not

15. Everyone loved Coke, from the young an innocent…

16. …to the old, and suspicious-looking

17. And of course, every crack and every corner was hiding a picture of Patrick Swayze

The eighties were a truly amazing time. It’s interesting to see how much customs have changed, from what we bought, what we wore and the way we behaved. If the eighties seem too recent for you however, and you prefer nakedness to questionable fashion, check out these rare photos of a 1969 naked treehouse commune.