Members Only jackets give entrée to the 80s' most-exclusive club


ZOW! POW! WHAMMO! Here comes the 1980s, that electric decade, that glitter-burst epoch, strutting down the boulevard of history with a boombox on its shoulder, blasting synth-pop anthems into the ozone, the air thick with Aqua Net and ambition. And what’s that glinting in the strobe-lit haze? What’s that sleek silhouette slicing through the crowd like a shark fin through the waters of Port Harbor? It’s the Members Only jacket.

Ah, the Members Only. A name that crackles with a delicious, almost illicit, exclusivity. Members of what, exactly? That remained wonderfully vague, a shimmering ambiguity that only enhanced its allure. Perhaps it was a club of the effortlessly cool, the possessors of some ineffable sprezzatura that allowed them to navigate the treacherous terrain of high school hallways and mall food courts with an air of insouciant command. 

Perhaps it was a more metaphorical membership, a silent pact among those who understood the unspoken language of status, a visual handshake exchanged across the crowded arcade. If you weren't wearing it, well, you just weren't a member, now were you? The name says it all—exclusivity without the trust fund, cachet without the country club. The Members Only jacket was the great equalizer—blue-collar, white-collar, no-collar, it didn’t matter. If you had the jacket, you were in. You were Members Only.

Walk into any high school cafeteria, any roller rink, any neon-lit arcade pulsing with Pac-Man fever, and you’d see them: the jackets, slung over shoulders or zipped tight, in colors that burned the retina—jet black, navy blue, candy-apple red, or that audacious bone white that dared you to spill your Slurpee. Turn on the TV, and you might see a lesser character sporting one on Miami Vice, that neon-pastel barometer of 80s sartorial greatness.


The jacket itself was a marvel of synthetic ingenuity. A lightweight carapace, often in a shade of faded navy or a surprisingly-assertive burgundy, its most distinguishing feature was that trim, stand-up collar, fastened with a snap. Pop that collar, mon ami, and you were instantly transformed. No longer just Kevin from down the street, struggling with algebra and the persistent advances of the Laffer curve; you were...someone. Someone with an edge, a hint of the urban warrior lurking beneath the suburban veneer. You were momentarily imbued with the aura of a character in a Brat Pack flick, ready to deliver a witheringly sarcastic line or peel out in a vintage Porsche.

That zipper, gleaming like a chrome-plated promise, ran as smooth as a DeLorean at 88 miles an hour. The knit cuffs and waistband hugged you like a high school crush, and those shoulder epaulets gave you the silhouette of Hannibal Smith. The inside pocket, discreet and sly, was for your Walkman tapes, your Ray-Bans, your folded-up love note from the girl who sat behind you in third-period English.

It was the era of Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” and Madonna’s “Material Girl,” and the Members Only jacket was the perfect accessory for a decade that worshipped the conspicuously-consuming striver. You wore it to the mall to buy the new Duran Duran album, to the drive-in to see Top Gun, to the kegger where you hoped to lock eyes with that girl in the leg warmers. It was your armor, your cape, your ticket to the party.

So, the next time you stumble across a faded photograph from the Reagan years, and you see a gaggle of earnest young faces, at least one sporting that distinctive collar, remember this: you are witnessing a moment in the ongoing saga of suburban aspiration, a fleeting glimpse into a world where a simple jacket could signify so much, even if what it signified remained, delightfully...Members Only.

But why just take a glimpse, when you could still enter that world? You could be a member - and no DeLorean time machine is necessary. Third-world craftsmen are still assembling them for today's shopper who doesn’t know Depeche Mode from a dial-up modem, but feels the jacket’s inescapable pull from across the decades. It's your turn. ZOW! POW! WHAMMO! The ’80s are calling, and they’re still taking applications.

Photos courtesy Members Only

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