One of our summer interns did a story for the Magazine about the trendiness of '80s fashion and music among people unable to participate in that era due to being in diapers, in utero or in their dad's eye as a gleam.

I assumed the '80s music revival to be a sensible appreciation of tunes that had tunes, rather than monotonous beats and sample loops accompanied by moans or profanity. When I go to the gym, I take my iPod to drown out the porn actresses pouting and writhing on the video screens. They all sound the same, but the music is obviously incidental to their appeal. Aretha Franklin and k.d. lang couldn't get gigs as backup singers with bags over their heads in this environment.

So I was a little taken aback to read some of the opinions and quotes from the college-age hipsters featured in the article. Instead of, say, "homage," one of them actually used the word "satirize." He was a "fifth-year undergraduate," something we didn't have in the '80s, despite attending many '80s parties.

Another young man quoted in the story said he loved the '80s because "it was a ridiculous decade in terms of fashions, and it is funny to see people dress up in funny clothes."

Funny clothes? Really? And there's nothing funny about wearing your pants around your knees so everyone can see your boxer shorts? There's nothing funny about girls with plumber's crack and muffin tops? I laugh until I get tears in my eyes. And I wore drop-waisted minidresses.

Beware, cool young persons: In 20 years, you will read a story -- no, wait; you'll have an audiovisual wikiblog entry beamed directly to the chip in your cerebral cortex -- about the ironic, satirical revival of '00s music and fashion in which college students will say things like "I love it because it's so absurd! Tacky flipflops with a wool skirt! Bra straps and underpants hanging out! Ironed hair! And those hilarious butt tattoos! My mom has one of those. Soooo retro and funny."

Not that we in the '80s didn't think previous eras' fashions made delightful costumes. Bell-bottoms were so universally despised -- I think most of them were burned sometime around 1981 -- that they were a rare and highly valued thrift-shop find. "Oh my God, you look like a hippie! Hey, wow, right on, man! Peace and love!"

We thought the '60s were wild and comical in their groovy Woodstock excesses, but the '70s were so awful they were simply taboo. It was too soon. The fashions and music were cringeworthy, not funny. As Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats sang in "Rock This Town," "I put a quarter right into that can, but all it played was disco, man." Disco and everything that went with it -- polyester, for example -- was radioactive. Punk and New Wave made Abba as welcome as tear gas.

Setzer also complained in that song about "a real square cat, he looks-a 1974." Death. Plaid pants? Open shirt with chains? Wide tie? Big mustache? Unspeakable. A guy would be better off wearing a dress. And in the '80s that wouldn't turn too many heads, as long as he had the legs for it. Or maybe that would turn more heads.

Don't get me wrong; even at the time, I thought some of the music and fashion of the '80s was ill-advised. For every Clash, Pretenders or Elvis Costello there was a Culture Club or Flock of Seagulls. Too many synthesizers, too much eyeliner on men. Too much eyeliner in general. By 1987, we were dipping into our nation's strategic reserves of eyeliner.

Leg warmers? Looked goofy on anyone who wasn't an actual dancer in an actual dance studio. The torn sweatshirt could be sexy, or it could just look like you lived in a refrigerator box. The Michael Jacksonwear ... well ... people did a lot of cocaine in the '80s.

But all the disco kings and queens and hippies in the '60s and '70s thought they looked great, and we thought we looked pretty hot in the '80s too. We women thought the poodle perms, colored mascara and bright pink lip gloss were sexy. I was knocked out when my college boyfriend took me to the prom in a big white Don Johnson suit with a pink-and-white striped shirt and no socks.

I wore fingerless white lace Madonna gloves with my poofy-sleeved dress.

OK, the dress was, in retrospect, hideous. Mistakes were made. Let us never speak of acid wash again.

Still, cool is in the eye of the beholder. And behind his Ray-Bans, I saw something in my boyfriend's eyes. A gleam.

Some things never go out of style.