Welcome to Ephemeral 80s

Welcome to Ephemeral 80s - a website dedicated to the forgotten curios of Britain in the 1980s.

Yes, yes, we all remember the marquee acts of the 1980s - the Rubik’s Cube with its maddening smugness, Live Aid’s rhapsody of voluminous haircuts, and George Michael’s designer stubble plastered all over the walls of millions of teenage girls. But Britain wasn’t just dry ice, Duran Duran and the Sinclair C5. Beyond all the glitz and glamour, the decade was luxuriously padded with the banal and the beige - the crisp packets, the curiously clunky technology and the items which never aspired to be iconic but soldiered on valiantly through the cold, wet days of national life.

And that’s where Ephemeral 80s steps in: an enthusiastic rummage through the drawer everyone forgot to empty out in 1990. Ephemeral 80s isn't about the things Redbubble sellers stick on mugs and t-shirts, it’s about the things history left in Tupperware. Expect crisp packets with more E-numbers than nutrition, extensive St Michael knick-knackery, obsolete tech the size of small furniture, dusty and forgotten local newspapers, conference badges, and posters for long forgotten events (even if it's for a jumble sale from 1986.) 

Contributions from similarly curious minds are not only welcomed, they're essential. Together, we can help rescue the past not with Channel 5 documentaries and half-baked memories of Saturday Superstore, but with old biscuit tins and issues of Designer's Journal. There's no need for Tardises, flux capacitors, or interpretive dance - just a fresh look at the Britain that really was: scuffed, practical and praying to get through the day.

Title Image: High Street, Marlborough in 1985 by John Baker