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news

Vintage Toronto Ads: Preppy Pizzazz

By Jamie Bradburn

2007_06_12bay.jpg
Is your wardrobe lacking that all-important “pocket pizzazz”? Not feeling preppy enough as spring winds down? Need snazzier purple pants the next time you Hulk out? Look no further than today’s ad!
Note the exclusivity of the jackets compared to the pants. White preppy tennis gear and red bomber jackets were way too cool to be sold to the hoi polloi outside the 3 km radius of the Bay’s Bloor St store (Queen and Yonge was still Simpson’s at this point). As for the pants, pizzazz knows no geographical or socio-economic boundaries!
Feel free to slip on a pair of shades and rock out to your favourite 1980s movie soundtrack.
Source: Toronto Life, March 1985

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Comments

  • Marc Lostracco

    Know the toe.

  • Stephanie Hart

    “Blane? His name is Blane? That’s a major appliance, that’s not a name!”

  • Jeremy Wilson

    I was a model around the time this was out. I did tons of ads just like this. The pose where you’re pointing out into space at nothing was fairly popular. I’ve worn enough windbreakers to last me a lifetime.

  • Marc Lostracco

    The funniest poses were the ones where the guys were all hanging out in their underwear, laughing and pointing into space or tossing around a soccer ball. And, of course, their t-shirts were always tucked into their briefs.
    As for the women’s shots, there was always a pose where the model looked like she was looking down and examining something on her shoulder. Or walking and laughing arm-in-arm in a line with three other women, because that’s what women do when they all show up somewhere in matching outfits.

  • David E

    Anyone remember the year or so in the 1980s when all the models had their hands at their heads as through they all had Tylenol headaches? The mid-’80s, I think.

  • Steve

    This may be the first case of male camel-toe I’ve ever seen…and I must say…nay.
    Anyway, I have to ask the ladies about one of today’s fashions…what is up with the Paris Hilton/Nicole Ritchie sunglasses? They’re just awful. Here in Rochester, women all over are wearing these tacky glasses, acting like they’re movie stars…I wanna just walk up to them and say, “You live in Rochester, you live in a small town in upstate New York, this isn’t LA, or NYC or London…get over yourself”. (New York, London, Paris, Munich, everybody talk about…)
    Some of the fashions today are no less awful than the 80′s.

  • Eric S. Smith

    I’m not sure what the cool talk sounded like in 1985, but I think the guy on the right is gesturing to Michael J. Fox that he doesn’t want another Pepsi.

  • Jamie Bradburn

    Or his MTV, for that matter.

  • Emily R

    FYI: Male camel-toe = Moose Knuckle
    Does anyone think the guy on the right (i.e. invisible basketball guy) looks like a young Brad Pitt? Could be him, non?

  • mongo

    Ah, The Bay. They make ugly funny.