Happy endings. Puffy sleeves, ruffled collars, sparkling detail on costumes… This is the stuff of fairy tales. So how is any of this ’80s-specific? If the fairy tale was made in the ’80s, the sleeves were puffier, the collars frillier and everything was, well–sparklier!

This Valentine’s Season, we spotlight the talented artisans and curators of Etsy! Enjoy perusing these treasures for him, for her and for you! A special thank-you to my Etsy friends for bringing these ’80s vintage and ’80s-inspired handmade items into our realm of gifting possibilities…

Frederick Barthelme’s Moon Deluxe is a short story collection filled with vivid descriptions of contemporary American life–suburban apartment complexes, beach-side tourist traps, shops selling bright distractions… Quirky characters stumble through everyday life with understated brilliance. It’s the little things that make this book so big.

If you’ve ever identified with punk culture or been amused by Hollywood’s countless stereotypes of leather-clad rebellious youth, this book is for you. Edited by Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly, who painstakingly combed VHS tape after VHS tape for traces of punk-dom, Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film is the most comprehensive catalog of media-depicted punk culture in print. Seriously.

New Year’s Eve in the ’80s… The sparkle, the glitz…

And nothing brought it home like Rob Reiner’s romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. In fact, some of the film’s key romantic moments occur at New Year’s Eve parties!

So what could an ’80s brooch have to do with the spirit of Christmas? Plenty! In grade school I looked forward to the Book Fair each year. One year we got to attend with our “8th Grade Buddies.” My buddy and I were browsing the display table when we both reached for this brooch. “It’s yours,” she said without flinching. And my job at Mirror80 is to make sure her sacrifice was not in vain! (And yes, I’m still trying to figure out why they were selling women’s jewelry at a grade school book fair, but that’s beside the point)…

Sophisti-pop appeared in the mid-’80s, merging pop, jazz and soul. Its sound was smooth, polished and mellow, often with heavy doses of synthesizer. Many of the genre’s contributors were British. Sophisti-pop acts included artists like Basia, Swing Out Sister, Sade, The Blow Monkeys, Bryan Ferry, Spandau Ballet and Curiosity Killed the Cat. While some music from this genre is lumped in with “smooth jazz,” to dismiss it as schmaltz would overlook its ’80s roots and heavy emphasis on style. And Mirror80 just can’t do that…