Figure Skating Costumes Through the Years: I Love The 80s!

Welcome to 2017, my friends! Hope the new year is treating you well and it will be the best one yet! It has been a while since we have done one of my costume posts. Today, we are focusing on the 80s! These last few decades are going to be a little easier for me to write about because I actually remember them! The 80s was when I discovered and fell in love with the sport, so I always remember it fondly.

There are some definite themes flowing through the decade. As it has been the case in most of these previous posts, pop culture and current fashions definitely influence the skating world. Let's take a look.

Spandex everywhere!

As spandex was a popular choice for workout wear and regular clothes in the 80s, this also transferred to figure skating. Men's costumes were in on the trend too!

The Standard Ladies' Competition Dress of the 80s

This consists of a spandex-type fabric with a lot of embellishment. The more embellishment the better! Go big or go home. One reason I love the 80s. The necklines are low with a crapload of illusion netting...not the best thing. Most of the dresses had long sleeves with much shorter skirts than what we have seen in decades past.

 Rosalyn Sumners (USA)

 Caryn Kadavy (USA)

 Caryn Kadavy (USA)

Elizabeth "Liz" Manley (CAN)

The Spandex Men's Jumpsuit (and one lady)

The spandex was not left just to the ladies in the skating world. It was all the rage in men's figure skating too! Most of you remember Scott Hamilton's spandex jumpsuit from his win at the 1984 Olympics:

Well, many other men jumped on board with this trend too. Maybe it's easier to move in then the formal "suit and tie" type looks of the past.

 Here, we have Brian Orser busting a move in this purple number,

and this is Josef Sabovcik in his competitive days before he grew his signature long locks, becoming the bad ass rock star on ice we all know and love. 

Debi Thomas even got in on the spandex jumpsuit trend:

This was refreshingly different from all the "standard ladies competitive dresses" seen above.

Not everyone was into the spandex though. This brings us to another big trend of 80s figure skating costumes:

Flowing Sleeves

Flowing sleeves were the more romantic trend of the decade, primarily worn in men's singles, pairs, and ice dance. 

Here, we have one of the all time greatest pairs teams, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, taking on the trend in their first Olympic appearance in Calgary:

You will see that Katia has the "standard ladies competition dress" thing going, but Sergei is rocking the flowing sleeve.

We also have Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean in their iconic "Bolero" costumes:

These costumes were perfect for the performance and definitely enhanced the drama. 

Last in this category, we have Robin Cousins bravely taking on 3 of the decade's trends at once: the flowing sleeve, the low cut neckline, and embellishment:

Bless. 

Well, he did win gold in the 1980 Olympics, so maybe this was on the tail end of the disco days.

EPIC OLYMPIC SHOWDOWNS!!!

Onward we go, to one of the most exciting and anticipated events of the 80s, the 1988 Olympics! We had 2 epic showdowns! Time to cue up some music:

There, now we've got the mood going. 

First up, we have the ladies event, the Battle of the Carmens!

Here, we have Debi Thomas, the top contender to win for the USA in ladies!

Here, we have East Germany's Katarina Witt, as the flirty Carmen!

Katarina Witt skated and flirted her way to her second gold with this routine. It is legend.

One unfortunate side effect of this battle was to bring about what is arguably the most overplayed skating song of all time. I will post on this later.

Next, the men's event, the Battle of the Brians!

We have Brian Orser of Canada, in the red military themed costume!

And Brian Boitano of the USA in the navy blue military themed costume!

Brian Boitano wins! And why did he win??? He made a plan and saw it though!

And here we go....

Come on y'all, you knew it was coming. 

Last part of the post, as this is the last decade of the big production ice shows:

Feathers and frippery on show costumes

While the 80s were the decade of flashiness, the show costumes take the cake. Here is Katarina Witt in an exhibition costume:

Who the hell am I kidding? I love this. I would wear it right now. It would definitely need some more feather coverage on the skirt, and I'd probably end up looking like a bird or something. Totally don't care, this is fabulous.

Next, we have the ladies of Ice Capades going out for a group number:

Some more Vegas showgirl type drag.

This last one is very special to me. This show is what got me hooked on figure skating. It was the 1987 Ice Capades with Teddy Ruxpin. I was 5 years old and my mom and grandma took me to see this show. Little did they know it would create an obsession that has gone on for nearly 30 years! Here is the poster:

I hope you all enjoyed this walk down memory lane, and we will pick up soon in the 90s. Later!

Autumn at Icy Trails ⛸