The 80s was a time of fashion. Everyone who grew up in the 80s remembers a time when being fashionable was very important. It was not necessarily about what you wore, but it was just as important to be stylish and well dressed.
80’s fashion has gone through several generations of changes over the years, but one thing that remains true is that people today still look for style and originality in clothing. There are a lot of different stores where you can find popular 80s fashions today, such as Kmart, Sears, JCPenney and Macy’s department stores.
These stores all had their own specialties during the 80s and many different styles of clothing were sold there during that time period. Aside from fashion, these stores also offered other useful and trendy items. Here are some of the most popular mall stores in the 80s:
Camelot Music
Some of the mall shops included Camelot Music, where the latest vinyl and cassettes were sold. By the end of the ’80s, they also had ample stocks of CDs, VHS tapes, and blank cassettes.
Simply browse the racks that lined the wall. Select the one that you want, and take it to the cashier. The tapes were often put in plastic pouches, and the cashier would unlock them in order that the alarm didn’t go off at the exit. The profits of Camelot rose in the 1980s, and they sold not only music, but also home video game consoles and games cartridges.
Kmart
In the 80s, Kmart was the king of retail. It was the same thing as Target, but in the 80s and their items sold for much cheaper. They sold clothing, but they also sold just about everything else.
Kmart was a chain of big box department stores. It opened in 1962, and reached its peak in the early 90s. It had over 2,000 stores worldwide, though most of which were in the US.
By the end of the 80s, though, all the Kmart stores had become outdated and in a deteriorating condition. This prompted the corporate office to shift its attention to other companies that it had acquired.
Merry-Go-Round
Merry-Go-Round is a youth-oriented clothing and accessory store. They specialize in offering unique designs for teens.
Their stores would always profit from trends that come straight from MTV. The company started out selling blue jeans, and it reached its peak during the 1980s when there were almost 1,000 stores in 39 states, the majority of which were located in shopping malls.
The company has been successful ever since it was listed in 1983. It has continued to make profit from its ability to capitalize on the latest fashion trends. They made a huge mistake when they started selling hip-hop clothes and baggy items that caused their audience to turn away from them. Eventually, this led to a bankruptcy that left the company dwindling in the 1990s.
Waldenbooks
If you needed to get the latest issue of Tiger Beat, or if you wanted to get the new player’s handbook for Dungeons & Dragons, you could not just let Amazon bring it to you back in the 80s. Waldenbooks was a fixture in many malls.
When Kmart purchased Waldenbooks in 1984, it became the biggest bookstore chain in the country. Kmart would later buy the Borders bookstore chain and progressively take over their stores. When Waldenbooks ended in 2011, they had been phased out completely.
