How to Dress Like Bananarama in the 1980s

Bananarama formed in the London in late 1981. Comprising three best friends Keren Woodward Sarah Dallin and Siobhan Farley, the latter whom they met at the London College of Fashion. Their success on both pop and dance charts has earned them a listing in the Guinness World Records as the all-female group with the most chart entries in the world.

Here's some ways to dress like Bananarama in the 1980s:

Early 80s Bananarama Look

For an early 80s Bananrama look, you don't need to look like you've tried too hard! Just get hold of a stripy jumper or top,  a hat and some pedal pushers or cropped jeans. Hair must be wild and messed up, make up bold.

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Dance Demonstration of Chubby Checker's “The Twist” (1961)

More than fifty years ago, a new dance craze swept the world and changed for ever the way people move.

It's 1961, and a new era is dawning. On the dancefloor, the Twist – which had enjoyed a brief vogue among America's teens the previous summer – is enjoying a second coming that will sweep the world and change the way people move. No more waltz, quickstep or foxtrot. No more rumba or beguine, cha-cha or tango. No more jitterbug or jive. The Twist is a dance for different times.

The absence of body contact is significant. Rather than going through a set of predetermined steps, you are free to use dancing as a means of self-expression, of doing your own thing, though that phrase will not come into use until the 60s have become fully swinging. It is a narcissistic dance, but it also gives you the chance to watch your partner's moves, and read their intentions. And since you are not physically attached to your partner, there is nothing to stop you drifting away to dance with someone else who has caught your eye (of course, you can also have that humiliation visited upon you, and find yourself dancing alone). Finally, there is no leader: here is the first dance in which the genders are created equal.

Old Postcards Show How Men Expressed Romantic Gestures With Their Lovers From the Early 20th Century

These fascinating postcards show how men expressed romantic gestures with their lovers from between the 1900s and 1920s.

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LIFE Magazine Pearl Harbor Issue: How To Tell Japs From The Chinese

Below are excerpt of several pages from a LIFE magazine's article (December, 1941):

How To Tell Japs From The Chinese

Angry Citizens Victimize Allies With Emotional Outburst At Enemy

In the first discharge of emotions touched off by the Japanese assaults on their nation, U.S. citizens have been demonstrating a distressing ignorance on the delicate question of how to tell a Chinese from a Jap. Innocent victims in cities all over the country are many of the 75,000 U.S. Chinese, whose homeland is our stanch ally. So serious were the consequences threatened, that the Chinese consulates last week prepared to tag their nationals with identification buttons. To dispel some of this confusion, LIFE here adduces a rule-of-thumb from the anthropometric conformations that distinguish friendly Chinese from enemy alien Japs.

To physical anthropologists, devoted debunkers of race myths, the difference between Chinese and Japs is measurable in millimeters. Both are related to the Eskimo and North American Indian. The modern Jap is the descendant of Mongoloids who invaded the Japanese archipelago back in the mists of prehistory, and of the native aborigines who possessed the islands before them. Physical anthropology, in consequence, finds Japs and Chinese as closely related as Germans and English. It can, however, set apart the special types of each national group.

The typical Northern Chinese, represented by Ong Wen-hao, Chungking’s Minister of Economic Affairs (left, above), is relatively tall and slenderly built. His complexion is parchment yellow, his face long and delicately boned, his nose more finely bridged. Representative of the Japanese people as a whole is Premier and General Hideki Tojo (left, below), who betrays aboriginal antecedents in a squat, long-torsoed build, a broader, more massively boned head and face, flat, often pug, nose, yellow-ocher skin and heavier beard. From this average type, aristocratic Japs, who claim kinship to the Imperial Household, diverge sharply. They are proud to approximate the patrician lines of the Northern Chinese.

Captions:

Page 81

Chinese public servant, Ong Wen-hao, is representative of Northern Chinese anthropological group with long, fine-boned face and scant beard. Epicanthic fold of skin above eyelid is found in 85% of Chinese. Southern Chinese have round, broad faces, not as massively boned as the Japanese. Except that their skin is darker, this description fits Filipinos who are often mistaken for Japs. Chinese sometimes pass for Europeans; but Japs more often approach Western types.

Japanese warrior, General Hideki Tojo, current Premier, is a Samurai, closer to type of humble Jap than highbred relatives of Imperial Household. Typical are his heavy beard, massive cheek and jaw bones. Peasant Jap is squat Mongoloid, with flat, blob nose. An often sounder clue is facial expression, shaped by cultural, not anthropological, factors. Chinese wear rational calm of tolerant realists. Japs, like General Tojo, show humorless intensity of ruthless mystics.

Chinese journalist, Joe Chiang, found it necessary to advertise his nationality to gain admittance to White House press conference. Under Immigration Act of 1924, Japs and Chinese, as members of the "yellow race," are barred from immigration and naturalization.

Page 82

Tall Chinese brothers, full length, show lanky, lithe build of northern anthropological group that has suffered most in China’s recent history from flood, famine and war with Japs. Average height of Northern Chinese is 5 ft. 7 in., sometimes exceeds 6 ft. Most Chinese in America come from southern and coastal cities, Canton and Shanghai. They are shorter than Northern Chinese, but retain the slight proportions of the young men shown here. When middle-aged and fat, they look more like Japs.

Short Japanese admirals, full length, exhibit the squat, solid, long torso and short stocky legs of the most numerous Japanese anthropological group. Since Navy is relatively new and junior service, Jap naval officer corps numbers fewer Samurai, has more of the round-faced, flat-nosed peasant type. Over 6 ft. tall, Admiral Nomura shows traits of the big, fair-skinned hairy Ainu, aborigines who still live on reservations in Northern Japan. Special Emissary Kurusu, also atypical, looks European.

A Book From the 1970s Offers Some Tips for How to Make Love to a Single Man

How to meet him, understand him, and love him...

Evidently, it is a LOT of work to get men interested in sex. These skills and tricks you can use to get a man interested in you. Advice includes how to seduce a man, one night stands, where to meet men, dressing sexy, and super detailed sex advice.

Written by Maggie Rajouane, How To Make Love To A Single Man is one of the first sex manuals written by a woman, for women who wanted to know how to pick up dudes. It puts a lot of work into sounding sexy, but like a lot of books in this genre, it comes off as totally weird.

1. “Sometimes he moves with the smoothness and assurance of a cat. That’s sexy.”

Wait ’til you see how well he can lick himself.

2. “He asked you to come and help him pick out a sports jacket. You tell him as long as he doesn’t wear it to bed.”

Wait ’til at least the fifth date before you ask him to try Porky Piggin’ it.

3. “He tells you he’s going to be the next Bergman. You tell him you’re going to be the next Liv Ullmann.”

Subtext: Sometimes if you wanna seduce a guy, you’ll have to endure his pretentious short film.

4. “He’ll just never understand how a nice Bryn Mawr graduate like you learned how to do an outrageous striptease.”

Careful: if you look into that man’s eyes for more than five seconds, you will get pregnant.

5. “He wants to know if he should play an album you can dance to. Yes, you say, put on something slow.”

Like an Alvin ‘n’ the Chipmunks record that’s slowed down so the chipmunks’ voices sound normal?

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Method of Women's Self Defense: Vintage Photos From 1906 Illustrate Modes for Warding Off a Street Bully or Foul

In 1906, the famed New York City photographer Percy C. Byron was commissioned to take a series of studio photographs depicting “Dr. Latson’s Method of Self Defense”. The pictures show an athletic young woman demonstrating an unarmed combat stance, several techniques of self defence with an umbrella and a stamping side kick to the attacker’s knee.

New Yorker William Richard Cunningham Latson had graduated from the Eclectic Medical College of New York City in 1904 and quickly became something of a self-help celebrity. The editor of Health-Culture, an influential magazine, he was also a prolific author of health and fitness books and his articles appeared in newspapers all across America. As a keen physical culturist with a particular passion for boxing, Latson’s subjects ranged from correct posture to natural diet and from the moral benefits of athletic training to the physiology of knock-out punches.

The 1906 self defence pictures eventually appeared as illustrations in a June 11, 1911 Denver Post article titled “When a Thug Attacks You,” and they were much later featured as historical curiosities in the book Once Upon a City: New York 1890 to 1910 (1958) and then in the June, 1972 issue of American Heritage magazine. The apparent absence of any references to “Latson self defense method” classes, demonstrations, etc. during the early 1900s may suggest either that the method remained undeveloped, or simply that it was not taught publicly.

During the first decade of the 20th century, Latson’s writing increasingly tended towards self-improvement in the psychological and even spiritual senses.

(Photos by Percy C. Byron/ Museum of the City of New York, via The Bartitsu Society)

How to Eat Spaghetti Like a Lady in the 1940s. (Note: Slurping Is Totally Acceptable)

Spaghetti-eating protocols have long been debated at the dinner table. Must one cut the pasta with a knife? Is it best to use a spoon to aid the noodle-winding process? And is slurping ever acceptable?

In 1942 LIFE magazine published a series of photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt as a tutorial for women, teaching how to elegantly consume spaghetti “like a lady”. The step-by-step guide featured portraits of a coiffured model determinedly twirling the strands of pasta on her spoon and, eventually, eating it in a dignified fashion.

The first step, LIFE wrote, is to use one's fork to separate a very specific four strands from the heap of pasta on one's plate. Next, the spoon should be wielded to achieve a controlled twirl of said strands around one's fork. Once twirled, the forkful should be eaten (a "ladylike" amount) in its entirety ("nibbling is out"). The final word on slurping? Acceptable, more or less: "Truant strands require patience, lip facility, suck power."

1. Spaghetti is prepared to be served.

2. Spaghetti is served.

3. Four strands of spaghetti should be segregated from the pile.

4. With soup spoon as prop, twirl fork and spaghetti gently.

5. A ladylike mouthful of spaghetti is ready for consumption.

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With Wielding Cardboard Boxes and Knives, See How 1960s Kids Made Box Pinhole Projectors to Safely Watch a Solar Eclipse

During the solar eclipse of 1960, hundreds of people had suffered permanent eye damage from looking directly at the sun. With help from the Illinois Society for the Prevention of Blindness, Emerson students avoided the same fate by building Sunscopes, pinhole camera-like contraptions that indirectly project an image of the sun. LIFE magazine offered instructions for those desiring to replicate the project at home:

To build your own, get a carton and cut a hole in one side, big enough to poke your head through. Paste white paper on the inside surface that you will be facing. Then punch a pinhole into the opposite side, high enough so that the little shaft of light will miss your head. For a sharper image you can make a better pinhole by cutting a one inch square hole in the carton, taping a piece of aluminum foil over this hole and then making the pinhole in the foil. Finally, tape the box shut and cover all light leaks with black tape.

Here, these photographs below were taken by LIFE photographer Francis Miller from 1963’s fifth grade class of the Emerson School in Maywood, Illinois. The photos show how kids made their own Sunscopes at school to safely look at an eclipse.

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Learn How to Dance Disco With Åke Blomqvist

Arthur Åke Blomqvist (1925-2013) was a Finnish dance instructor, active since 1940, and Judge of the tango market in Seinäjoki. Together with his wife Leena, he ran dance schools in Helsinki, Tampere and Lahti. Even the couple’s two children are dance teachers.

Åke Blomqvist was the host of a dance program that went on Saturday in Finnish TV. In 1980, he showed how to dance disco. A video of one of Åke’s disco lessons from the 1980s began to spread through the internet in the early 2000s, when the world suddenly became aware of this dance teacher's amazing ability to take Afro-American, gay and Latino moves, and remove all style, energy and panache, for the consumption of Finnish audiences.

The Gentleman's Guide to Self-Defense Maneuvers, c.1895

These images come from an untitled album from circa 1895, which catalogued numerous maneuvers a person can use if suddenly engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

The photographs depict two finely dressed gentlemen demonstrate a variety of encounters and the holds, twists, chops and drops one can use to come out on top, pocket watch and coin purse intact.

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Vintage Pictures Show a Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Make the Marcel Waves Hair That Were Popular During the 1920s

You probably think of the 1920s when you hear about Marcel waves, and rightly so; they reached their height of popularity during the '20s, about 15 years after the first electric curling iron was invented. François Marcel introduced his spring-clamp electric model in 1918, making heat styling safer and easier than ever.

At the time, waving was the primary way that women grew out their bobs. Hair irons were sold touting that they "feminised" the short cuts that young girls would come to regret. Bobs were a lot more edgy 100 years ago.

The rad thing about this waving technique, is once you've gotten it down, it can take just a few minutes to add texture to a low, messy bun, or you can curl your whole head for a festival vibe. Here's some of vintage pictures show a step-by-step tutorial on how to make the Marcel waves in the hair that were popular during the '20s:

(Images via Okinawa Soba)