Madonna, Blade Runner, mohawks, Studio 54, shoulder pads, deficit spending, Leigh Bowery and cocaine are just some of the visions, voices and vices that define the 80s, an era that could more easily be summed up in one word: Excess. Lived out by many, particularly those in the proverbial underground, as if they were the last years on earth, the decade spawned nothing short of an artistic explosion in the fields of fashion, music and art. With 20 essays and 700 images pieced together scrapbook-style, "Excess: Fashion and the Underground in the 80s" (Charta), available in mid-March, documents the period and serves as the catalog for a just-wrapped exhibition of the same name in Florence, Italy. In the following slideshow, co-curator—and new style editor at The New York Times Magazine—Stefano Tonchi shares his thoughts about those ambitious ten years.
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