80s Legwarmers

Enjoy a blast from the past with authentic 80s legwarmers. Maybe you grew up in the 80s when everything was neon, stonewashed or loaded down with accessories a la Madonna. Or perhaps you have an unexplainable affection for this decade and all of its quirky fashions. While 80s fashion for women wasn't as groundbreaking as earlier decades, there were still hallmarks that defined the 80s like nothing else, including 80s legwarmers.

Legwarmers Come on the Scene

When aerobic exercise exploded onto the fitness scene in the early 1980s, thanks largely to videos by Jane Fonda, leotards and headbands became fashionable accessories. Women didn't just wear their leotards to the gym - they sported these skintight garments, originally meant for dancing and gymnastics, everywhere. They just slipped jeans, shorts or even skirts over them. In addition, legwarmers came into vogue.

While previously, legwarmers were generally confined to ballet dance studios and were worn to keep dancers' muscles warm and loose, part of 80s fads and fashions included taking legwarmers out of the ballet class and into aerobics class. For exercise, their usefulness remains a mystery. After all, aerobics participants get hot and sweaty and don't need the warming benefits of 80s legwarmers. However, once these accessories hit the scene, they were seen everywhere.

How They Were Worn

Once 80s legwarmers moved into the gym, it wasn't long before they moved out of the gym and into the general fashion arena. Women wore their favorite 80s legwarmers with mini skirts, jeans and even shorts. Typically, women scrunched the legwarmers below the knees, so the look was slouchy and casual. Any type of shoe worked with 80s legwarmers, from sneakers to ballet flats to high-heeled pumps. You can always look up 80s fashion pictures to see how creative women were in making 80s legwarmers part of their wardrobe.

Olivia Newton-John's video for Physical and movies like Footloose helped propel 80s legwarmers to even more popularity, but the fad largely died down by the mid-80s.

Resurrecting 80s Legwarmers

So can you get away with wearing legwarmers today and not look like a fashion victim who woke up a couple of decades too late? It depends. Legwarmers made a brief comeback on the runway in 2005, but they didn't enjoy the same popularity they did in the 80s. Along with stirrup pants and long tunics, 80s legwarmers may have already seen their heyday. Still, some women march to their own style tune and don't want to give up these accessories. This is still a fad that looks best on young women, preferably in their teens. Teen girls can wear legwarmers (along with other trends that older women should stay away from) and present a cute, retro face, but even so, with today's teen typically interested in what's new, she's not likely to want to wear something her mom wore in the 80s!

Finding Legwarmers

If you still want to bring some 80s style back into your life, you may have a mom or other relative who held onto her 80s wear. She might have these slouchy accessories stuffed in the back of a closet somewhere. It doesn't hurt to ask if you can borrow them for a retro 80s party. Or, there's always eBay, where you can usually find items that seemed long lost to history.

Making Legwarmers

If you're having trouble locating 80s legwarmers and if you're crafty enough, you can knit your own. There are dozens of free legwarmers knitting patterns that you can try, either for yourself or the dancer in your life. What's great about making your own is that you choose the colors and the pattern. Your legwarmers can be as simple or elaborate as you like.

Long Live the 80s

Even if the 80s wasn't your favorite decade, you can't deny the impact it had on fashion, whether or not the fads were to your taste. If nothing else, legwarmers kept plenty of women's calves nice and toasty all year long!