If one happened to be sensitive to bright colors, the 80s was probably a bad decade to live through. The onslaught of day-glo, neon, and fluorescent colors were something that one might expect from a bad acid trip, not from the fashion industry at large.

It all started innocently enough when folks like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper enhanced their look with brightly colored bracelets but things spiraled out of control from that point on - and swiftly. Soon, colors that were rarely witnessed in nature, unless one happened to cart a black light to the bottom of the ocean, were brightening everything from jewelry and make up, to every sort of clothing item imaginable, and even some that were decidedly unimaginable.

All the sudden it seemed everyone was dressed for Halloween as a velvet poster from the 60s. But Halloween only lasts a mere day. This went on for months…years, even. Sweatshirts were suddenly fluorescent orange, lipstick was so pink it looked like an emergency beacon from a distance, socks were neon green, akin to a bottle of Gatorade and as if that weren’t enough the fry the senses, even the traditional and iconic Chuck Taylor All-Star were laced up in a splash of electric color. It was inescapable, it was psychedelic in places that shouldn’t be psychedelic and it was a workout for every pupil in the country that couldn’t figure out when to dilate or not. It’s a wonder anyone survived to tell the tale.