Class of 1989

Yes! Hardly anyone looked good back then - the late 80s and early 90s were a horrible time for hair and fashion.

The woman on the bottom row, fourth from the left, is hot.

Those were some of the looks.

What’s Kurt Wilde doing in that class?

I think the 1980s produced the worst hair, make up and fashion of the 20th century.

it was as if people intentionally tried to look ugly

Probably more rural or working-class American than more affluent coastal cities/burbs.

In pre-internet days trends traveled much more slowly, so the looks reflected above were out of date in some places by then, but certainly common enough overall.

People in more affluent areas would have been looking a bit more Friends-like and less 80s

[R6] is right. I was class of 1991, and my friend group had a more 60s-redux/mid-late 90s look. A few of us had discovered J. Crew and copied the look of the models.

lol That looks like MY yearbook back then!

Friends did not happen in 1989. Yes. This yearbook was standard. We looked horrible.

The girl on the top left looks pretty timeless.

Looks very familiar alright.

Yes, I had some older cousins, who graduated around that time, and that is how they looked.

I miss those days. People took the time to dress up every single day. We looked good.

I was class of '89.

Shoot me.

Shoot me, now.

my school made us dress up for picture day, so that was typical for "wear nice clothes" in the late 80s/early 90s.

good look for the suburbs.

I had all of them

Who knew center part feathering was still a look for guys in '89. I would have thought that mess would have been gone by then. I guess real change didn't happen until Nirvana hit.

Half the guys at my school had this look going on. Can't say it's much of an improvement over the 80s.

"People took the time to dress up every single day. We looked good."

Uh, no, this was the 1980s, not the 1880s. Plenty of people dressed casually and a lot of them looked like shit - neon, fanny packs, mullets, acid washed everything

The guy on the lower left reminds me of Brent Corrigan.

there isn't really a soccer player/wrestler bro

OP, class of 90, ABSOLUTELY. The one missing character is the token “long hair” also called a “burn-out” or “stoner.” The burn-out would have shoulder length/collar bone length hair, bad acne, wearing an Anthrax shirt topped with a blue flannel.

The photo montage is also not representative of a single punk rocker/Lisa Bonet/Dead or Alive wanna be.

Aside from that, it is ABSOLUTELY spot-on.

R18, obviously he was a burn-out trying to rebrand himself. He reeks of the drugs, clearly. Poor thing.

I recall more Nu-Wave hairdos (asymmetrical, undercuts) on girls, though. Many more girls wore their hair short back then, preppy or punk. Almost as many as the ones with the perms and big volume.

And the guys I knew didn’t have mullets (the townies did, though).

R18, he’s high as a kite, no wonder his part looks like that!

R25, this is true, Cyndi Lauper had a huge influence on shorter hair.

R25 worse than mullets on guys, were the mullets on girls.

R22 - LOL at the wanna-be Lisa Bonet reference!

I guess we lived in a different world R7 -- DL does skew very middle America.

Was Heathers supposed to be class of ‘89?

I agree with r7, I posted about burn-outs. Where I grew up had some “rich” kids (laughable, just upwardly moving middle class families) but was predominantly working class and overflowing with drugs, though the drugs were trending out. That was the Chicago suburbs. In towns that were coastal and middle+ class, it was much more prep, at least on the east coast.

Looking back over the past 100 years I still say men of the EARLY 60s had the best cuts and styles. Classic, clean- cut and masculine.

R32 There are always and always will be preppy kids. I was one in the late 1990s-early 2000s . The great thing is that the preppy look is fairly timeless, so I can look back at my yearbooks and not feel embarrassment.

As bad as it is, it's nothing compared to the early 2000s:

Oh I agree r34. But the 80’s also had their own special sub-species of preppy. Preppies are forever, but true 80’s preppy looked a little different, more vivid. The most extreme preppies looked like they had a splash of Katy Perry, or something. Those who lived through it know of what I speak. There were preppies, and then there were Preppies.

Where is Martha Dumptruck?

Ok, better description. There were preppies, and then there were Valley Girl Preppies. Closely related but vastly different.

The 80s had fake preppies R36

It was a fashion trend for a few years, trickled down to Old Navy level stores and then it disappeared and the fake preppies became grunge or whatever trend came next.

There were real preppies too, as there always have been, but they were not a "type" at Flyoverstani high schools like the one in OPs photo

I liked the fashion in the '80s, not so much the hair.

The '80s-early '90s was the last period hen girls/ women had short hairstyles, and they were considered to be pretty and fashionable, even desired. A lot of big stars sported short hairstyles: Sharon Stone, Madonna, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Winona Ryder, Linda Evangelista, so on. Many women look better, younger, sexier with short hair, Sharon Stone being one of them, same for Princess Diana who knew what worked for her. Now girls mostly have long hair or shoulder length cuts, even if they don't look good with long hair.

I like the hair.

[quote][R25], this is true, Cyndi Lauper had a huge influence on shorter hair.

Cyndi Lauper a huge influence? Bitch, where was SHE in '81?

Nailed it.

I miss the power pixie /Annie Lennox short hairstyles from the late 80’s /early 90’s!! Now there was a hot look.

Our style in my high school was from Valley Girls (Deborah Foreman/Nicholas Cage) movie from 1983. That was what the majority of kids in my high school looked like. We actually used her as the example of the haircut we wanted. I graduated in 1984 and by then I was growing out my cringe worthy mullet and moving on to the Flashdance look for college.

r34 my school was also into the Preppy look in the late 80's so our pictures are pretty classic

I was Class of '89. OP, for a second I thought those photos were from my yearbook! Everyone looked like that. Well, I didn't. I was a "skater" and had a half shaved head with long hair over one eye. Also a hideous look.

Hot.

That looks dated for ‘89 unless we are talking about the Midwest where 1989 would look like 1982 everywhere else

R50, do you have an example of what average teenagers who didn't live in the midwest looked like in 1989? Genuinely curious.

In 1989, every teenager had access to MTV which is what influenced popular style from coast to coast. Even the goths and punks and stoners were influenced by MTV. The only kids who weren't were the ones wearing traditional religious or ancestral garb.

Remember that OP's photo is from Yearbook Picture Day which is when most kids tamed their look in response to their parents' wishes. On non-picture days, the hairstyles and facial hair could be wilder.

Nobody, except maybe the heavy metal stoners, still had the feathered hair in 1989 unless they called Des Moines or Omaha home...

r26 as a straight dude, I thought that was gonna be a hot chick playing soccer. Thanks now I'm all kinds of messed up.

[quote]the late 80s and early 90s were a horrible time for hair and fashion.

Agreed. America never looked trashier.

The bangs could be higher.

Photos taken in American shopping malls in 1989.......

I'm with r50. I grew up on the East Coast (and not in a rich area), and I would say the OP's yearbook looks a lot more like 1982 than 1989 to me. Very dated for a late-80s yearbook.

[quote]I think the 1980s produced the worst hair, make up and fashion of the 20th century.

[quote]Agreed. America never looked trashier.

Thanks for taking the heat off of me, guys!

R51 -- this is Scarsdale (affluent NYC burb) yearbook from 1988. A lot of the photos are small, but you can get the idea.

Rachel Maddow circa 1989

Rachel Zoe, circa 1989

I graduated in 1988 in South Florida. My class definitely looked more like r60's Scarsdale pics than OP's. Kids at my school would have been ruthlessly made fun of for looking like that.

OP's pic looks like a small rustbelt town that was 4-5 years behind the coasts. Like Pittsburgh. Or Appalachia.

[quote]Photos taken in American shopping malls in 1989.......

Looking at those photos the only things I would like to see make a comeback are big bulge jeans for guys:

Levi 501s 35% off sale at Penny's.

Cut to 1990 and the Beverly Hills 90210 looks are more timeless.

The feathered, parted in the middle hair on the guys in OP's post was definitely more early 80s than late 80s. As others have said, this must've been a small town that was several years behind the times.

It is a small town-- if you look at OP's photo it is from the town of Coos Bays, Oregon -- the website address for the link starts: www.marshfield.coos-bay.k12 and Google reveals Coos Bay as a small city on the Oregon coast, population 16,000

Perhaps some DLers more familiar with Coos Bay can fill us in

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Those tight 80s perms with the big skyscraper bangs were considered déclassé in more affluent areas.

How can OP photo be from 1989??? I agree with others who say it's more like 1982. Guys in 1989 were Ralph Lauren/Polo devotees, worn with khaki pants/Levis and Wayfarers or Aviators, or if you were really cool "Vuarnet" sunglasses. They had preppy classic hair. Think "Dead Poets Society" instead of the arcade at your local mall. Cut off khaki Duckhead shorts in the summer for both guys and girls. Girls had long hair with bangs but not too high, and wore clothes from the Gap, Limited Express and J Crew. Perms were not that "in" in 1989. If you had big hair at all you were trying to emulate supermodels like Cindy Crawford with your hair. Of course, I grew up in a relatively affluent area in the South.

r71 it depended on region and class. Mullets and big perms lasted well into the 1990s in certain areas.

[quote]Nobody, except maybe the heavy metal stoners, still had the feathered hair in 1989 unless they called Des Moines or Omaha home...

Or rural Ohio. Half of my graduating class had that haircut, in various lengths, regardless of gender. R72 is correct that the rest of us, myself included, were rockin' the mullets and poodle perms right on past graduation.

Rachel Maddow looked better then

Middle guy on top row is hot. I preferred the feathered hair of the 70s, though.

Those "skyscraper bangs" we're known as a bitch flip.

Class of 90 here and I recall two girls already into 90s hippie redux by the time we had senior pictures, with peace sign necklaces and vests and blousy poet shirts. Don't see anything like that in these pictures, and no token punks either.

r76 in the Northeast we called those bangs "the Jersey Claw."

Interesting R78

I grew up in Westchester and never heard that.

"Big guido hair" was probably the closest we had to a name for it.

R18's photo is circa 1993, not 1989, and is Howard Donald who was/is in Take That.

We just called those bangs/hairstyle Mall hair.

The young woman in the bottom row, second from the right has a late-80s look. The three men with middle parts and feathered hair appear more early-80s.

Tons of kids had feathered hair through mid/late 80's in my high school. And different groups sported it. Burnout metal heads, preps, jocks, and a few nerds.

[quote]Perhaps some DLers more familiar with Coos Bay can fill us in

I grew up in Myrtle Point which is about 23 miles south of Coos Bay. What do you want to know?

I'm class of 88 from rural Northern California. There is one guy in my senior yearbook who had the middle part feathered hair as did his twin sister. They were stoners. My yearbook is a mix of OPs and that Scarsdale yearbook. There were more alternative types all though we didn't call ourselves that. Arty with punk and hippy influences, vintage clothes. Kind of Lisa Bonet style I guess. We didn't have a label for ourselves because we were way to cool and complicated for a single label. My home town isn't racially diverse but it has a mix of people. Rednecks, back to the land hippies, white flight gated community types, fundies, and gay men who liked Victorians but didn't want to live in SF anymore. My yearbook reflects that cultural socioeconomic diversity.

Many of the Lisa Bonet girls were exotically beautiful, they truly owned their look and were really into “originality.” Being Original bought one social poeer, the more Original you were (without looking desperate or silly), the more reverence one received from one’s peers.

Of the many unique Lisa Bonet’s I ran with, one was a northern Italian redhead who looked similar to the picture below. Another redhead was Irish/Scots and the same color hair but straight (often dyed or partially dyed and shaved short except for her bangs), and another was Egyptian Muslim with light hazel eyes. Many other races/creeds, and many in that crowd were gay, it was where being gay was ok, safe, and fun. Those girls were a hybrid of a Lisa Bonet Wanna-Be crossed with a fag hag.

[quote]There were more alternative types all though we didn't call ourselves that.

Oh, dear!

[quote]We didn't have a label for ourselves because we were way to cool and complicated for a single label.

Oh, DEAR!

Grammar Troll strikes again, and I am in full support.