The Match Set: 1984
We’re literally not even going to mention the dystopian novel.
Nostalgia for the 1980s—are we over it? It seems not! Those seemingly nerdcore New Balances are stylish. Half the country thinks Reagan was a better president than FDR. Athleisurewear, current fashion trend, is a portmanteau culled from one of Richard Simmons’ perm-chemical induced dreams. Jerry Brown is the governor of California. The kicker? This computer, for sale right now. It is called the Golden Apple, and it is a high-luxe replica of Apple’s original 128k Macintosh, released in 1984. Instead of molded plastic cladding, this personal computing redux sports panels made of American walnut and key caps made from gold-plated zinc. Inside, thank God, are not the original logic boards, but hardware from a brand new Mac Mini, because while old shapes can bring a tear to a cornball’s eye, no one gets misty over slow computing.
Sixteen Candles came out in 1984, right alongside the Apple. Some deride it with rhyming labels—chick flick, brat pack, rom-com—but the truth is, the movie has pathos for days. Watch the final scene, tough guys, and try not to feel an achy tenderness in that organ beating below those rock solid inches of pectoral. In the final minutes, Jake, Molly Ringwald’s granite-faced love interest, arrives to rescue her from a family wedding and celebrate her birthday, which to that point, had been forgotten. He arrives not on a steed, but in a shiny 1984 Porsche 944 in Guards Red—a white horse for a certain kind of rich suburbanite. This black 1984 944 has all the looks without the exuberant paint and look—it’s even from the Chicago area. Just what John Hughes would have wanted.
