Interviewed About Miami Vice Style

[skystrick]

Maybe some here will find this interesting. I was interviewed last year by an 80's design blog about the "Miami Vice look" (interior design, artwork, etc.)

 

http://mirror80.com/2013/08/the-80s-connection-skylar-strickland/

[Sonny-Burnett]

GREAT article and fascinating observations. I remember some of these distinctive designs (white plush carpeting, lots of chrome, and all white walls). I also think that maybe it is possible for this style to enjoy a resurgence in the future.  From your article:

 

"For all the fans of the 80s who weren’t around back then, here’s the best advice I can give you: buy the entire DVD set of Miami Vice, and then sit down and watch every single episode, from every season. That will give you a better understanding of 80s art than anything you could learn in school, or from a book, or from me. It’s the absolute mecca, the epitome, the quintessential and archetypal example of 80s design. It’s representative of the 80s design aesthetic in a way nothing else is."

 

Couldn't agree more .

[skystrick]

Here are some more photos of Vice-era styling, which got cut from the final article for length reasons:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jerry B.]

Great post here. Travelling through the visual, the design and the fashion of that golden era, you can actually feel on your skin what "being there" at that time did mean. Everything is creative, colored and seems to ooze happiness. Colors span from pastel to hyper saturated, but always communicating a sense of positivity and brightness.

The graphics used for home items or home interiors is always dynamic, energic, powerful. Alive, in one word. The 80s - especially the mid eighties - brought back some of the avant-garde of the beginning of the 20th century. In my opinion, some of the best things in art, design and architecture the man ever created.

If you look at some of the above posted images, you can't escape seeing where they come from: De Stijl, Cubism, Art Deco, Futurism, Dadaism, Russian Constructivism and Suprematism, the Bauhaus movement in Germany are evident influences to the graphics of the eighties. Artists like Vassillij Kandinsky, Piet Mondiran, Gerrit Reitved, Georges Vantongerloo, or Lissitzky and Malevic in Russia had a huge influence on graphics and design during our beloved decade. Look at the works of British graphic designer Neville Brody to get the picture.

Don't they look so eighties? Look at the dates.

 

 

 

 

 

Now look at these ones. They were made in the 80s. Doesn't the Patrick Nagel girl look Deco?

 

 

 

Same can be said for architecture: most of the villas and buildings we love in Miami have been built at the beginning of XX Century, in a mix of Rationalism, Art Deco and tropical culture. What is usually called Deco in Miami is actually a different thing. The Art Decoratif movement was born in France and is something quite different from what you find in Miami Beach. Once "exported" in countries like Florida or California, it translated in something different. The pastel colors and the shapes of the buildings, sometimes recalling elements of planes or ships are quite far from the original French Deco. Some call it Tropical Deco and the more recent buildings are often referred to as Tropical Modernism. Just put this two definitions in a search engine to get lost in a true visual ecstasy.
 

Will we ever see that explosion of colors and shapes again? Can we hope for a revamp? I have my own doubts.

Art, design, architecture, as well as music, cinema, and the other expressive arts are just a reflection of times. And the future on this planet doesn't look exactly bright.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Jerry B.

[viceystyle]

Wow, this is really some amazing stuff. What strikes me about all these things, is that it looks so futuristic, it was like an alien world. That's why I've always thought the 80s had that otherworldly feel. I also love how plants were widely used as part of the decor. It especially worked in the warmer climates. Interesting that earlier in the 20th century, they had envisioned some of that, and in the 80s it actually happened. Too bad I don't think there will be a resurgence of all that stuff, it's just hard to imagine the way things are now.

[skystrick]

Wow, this is really some amazing stuff.

Thanks man. You'd like my Tumblr, "80s Heaven":   80sheaven.tumblr.com

 

 

 I also love how plants were widely used as part of the decor. It especially worked in the warmer climates. Interesting that earlier in the 20th century, they had envisioned some of that, and in the 80s it actually happened.

I understand what you're saying, but it "actually happened" in the early 20th century too. Victorian decor required at least one potted palm in every parlor. And if you ever see an old black-&-white photo from a church on Sunday morning back then, the altar was covered with more potted plants than Home Depot's nursery in June.

 

 

Too bad I don't think there will be a resurgence of all that stuff, it's just hard to imagine the way things are now.

Maybe, maybe not.

 

The 80s was partially a resurgence of 30s art deco and 50s streamline moderne. You can see the 50s influence clearly in the visual design of Tommy's garage on the M.V. episodes "Florence Italy" and "One-Way Ticket", as well as the ice cream parlor in "Lombard" where Charlie schemes with Librizzi.

 

I can remember a real-life ice cream parlor almost identical to that, called "Scoop DeVille", in Ramsey N.J. which closed back in the mid 90s. They had a whole half a real Cadillac convertible - the same model Tubbs drove - sawed off and hanging on the wall above one of those neon jukeboxes that played 45 RPM records.

 

The current 2010s decor is a resurgence of the "atomic age"/"mid-century modern" look from the 60s and early 70s.

 

So if we've relived the 30s, 50s, 60s, and early 70s...maybe it's time we relive the postmodern Memphis-Milano look that ran from the late 70s to the early 90s -- the Miami Vice look.

Edited February 27, 2015 by skystrick