There is a psychological phenomenon that has come to be known as the reminiscence bump, which refers to the brain’s ability to recall memories from adolescence more powerfully than those from other periods. Researchers say this “bump” can apply to experiences (a first kiss, a first dance), books, art, music—which may explain why my Spotify most-played list has many of the same tracks I was listening to on repeat in high school. And film is subject to this reminiscence bump too: The ones we see in adolescence have an indelible impact that doesn’t fade as the years go by.
“The things that happen when you’re young go deep,” says Andrew McCarthy, narrating one scene in his compelling new ABC News documentary Brats which premieres on Hulu this week. The movie’s intention is to delve into the aftershocks that being snarkily christened the “Brat Pack” in a 1985 New York magazine cover story had on McCarthy and his fellow actors. What emerges is a heartfelt look back at films that not only defined a generation, but transcended it, and the enduring connection unwittingly shared by a group of poster children for young Hollywood in the ’80s.
Though the actors who make up the so-called pack have never been explicitly listed (and, in the documentary, it’s a topic that’s up for debate), most agree that the core members are Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe, Anthony Michael Hall, and Demi Moore. The group would overlap in a number of films: Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire, The Outsiders, Class, Sixteen Candles, Fresh Horses, and, perhaps most emblematic of the “Pack” spirit, The Breakfast Club.
“If you were coming of age in the 1980s, the Brat Pack was at or near the center of your cultural awareness,” McCarthy explains at the beginning of the film. “We were who you wanted to hang with, who you envied, who you wanted to party with….” They were also arguably who you wanted to dress like. There was Demi Moore’s fabulous mess Jules in St. Elmo’s Fire with the strapless ruffled party dresses and lace bustier and stacks on stacks of rhinestones and pearls and the pink leather jacket that matched the walls of her apartment (notable also for its giant airbrushed Billy Idol painting and billowing curtains and giant Pepto pink anthurium flower arrangements).
There was the rough-and-tumble ensemble cast of dirty denim and worn-in leather and vintage tees (Emilio in that old Mickey ringer!) of The Outsiders, which is currently getting a Broadway revival, and, at the opposite end of the sartorial spectrum, the rumpled preppy uniforms of Class, a precursor to today’s quiet luxury perhaps. There was Molly Ringwald’s Andie in Pretty in Pink with her signature soft pastel palette and tapestry florals and thrifted shrunken ladylike cardigans and wire-rimmed glasses. (The movie’s opening scene sent me on a decades-long hunt for splashy floral-print ankle socks and Victorian-esque lace-up ankle boots).
And then there was The Breakfast Club, which, by virtue of its motley cast of characters—the jock, the brain, the princess, the criminal, the basketcase—spanned the style spectrum. In the process, it birthed a number of iconic, and oft-imitated, fashion moments: the varsity jacket, the Wayfarers, the flannel over henley and fingerless gloves, the oversize sweater and sling bag and athletic socks with sneakers, and the belted brown wrap skirt and brown boots paired with what can only be described as a pink hospital-ward-style shirt. (Trust me I’ve looked for a dupe every time I’ve needed medical attention.) “It astonishes me how many people found themselves in that film,” Sheedy says to McCarthy in one scene in Brats.
That’s because while the Brat Pack characters’ clothes were an integral expression of who they were, whose closet you wanted to emulate said something about who you were too. Were you an Allison (pre-makeover obviously) or a Claire? Were you a Blane or a Duckie? (Blane was a dreamboat, but it was Duckie’s buttoned-up shirts with a bolo tie and blazer plus porkpie hat and creepers that did it for me.) Off screen, the Brat Pack’s style was closely tracked too—Demi and Molly were masterful in their styling of baggy menswear pieces on the red carpet and entire appreciation posts could be devoted to Rob’s eyeglasses—and one need only scroll through Instagram to see that their 1980s looks still resonate. The recent pearl revival? That’s pure Brat Pack. Batsheva’s signature prairie dresses? Andie would have loved them. The roomy blazers with sharp shoulders favored by Jules? They’ve resurfaced on the runways at Saint Laurent and Balmain and trickled down to Zara.
We always hear that fashion is cyclical, but the staying power of the Brat Pack’s style has, like the films themselves, persisted: They are not a time capsule, they transcend time. When they first came out in the 1980s they were cultural touchstones; something that, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in the documentary, is harder to achieve now that youth culture, like so much else, is wildly fractured. But what’s remarkable is that despite seismic shifts in our culture, watching these films still remains a rite of passage for so many teenagers now. “You read Catcher in the Rye, you watch The Breakfast Club,” McCarthy quips.
While the Brat Pack came to define many of our personal approaches to style, they also often mirrored how we viewed the world, how we pushed back against it, and how we felt overlooked or misunderstood. The films are a prescient reminder of who we were back then and, sometimes, who we still are today. “To be a part of anything that anybody still talks about 30 years plus later is really a special thing,” Rob Lowe says in one of the film’s final scenes. Special enough perhaps to transcend the bruised egos and derailed career opportunities wrought by one catchy headline so many years ago. “Does the calcified past have any relevance,” McCarthy asked the audience during his introduction of Brats at the Tribeca Film Festival last week. “I discovered that it had a beating heart.”
