Taking it back to the 1980s! Rubik’s Cubes, shoulder pads, Cool Ranch Doritos—there’s no doubt this was an iconic era. BostonTalks invites you to throw it back and hear about the fashion, news, and music of the 1980s. BostonTalks is WGBH’s smarter happy hour. It’s smarter because we feature speakers, and it’s happy hour because we offer a variety of affordable beer, wine and cider. For the upcoming BostonTalks check out events. Image: [Pexels.com](https://www.pexels.com/search/tape/ "Pexels.com")
For more than 30 years Kathleen McDermott has popularized History and Culture. As a Consulting Historian from 1986 to 1998, she authored illustrated histories of large American fashion, beauty, and consumer product companies including Max Factor, Butterick Patterns, Kinney Shoe, Timex, Buxton Wallet, Sherwin-Williams, and Price Waterhouse (Harvard Business School Press). As Fashion History Instructor from 1998 to present at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and concurrently for five years at Rhode Island School of Design (2005-2011), she has presented slideshows and lectures on 500 years of Western fashion, culture, and art history to hundreds of students. Her classes are designed to create informed and activist adults, passionate about women’s history, fashion history, and art museums. She wrote, illustrated, and published in 2010 an accessible fashion history handbook Style for All: Why Fashion, Invented by Kings, Now Belongs to All of Us. See her online resume for fashion history public lectures and museum gallery talks as well as TV, radio, and print commentary. Since 2001, Kathleen has created and sold fashion-history-inspired handmade hats and accessories for private clients and Boston Lyric Opera as donor gifts.
A veteran reporter for WBZ-TV News, Bill Shields began his career in journalism as a reporter for KENS-TV in San Antonio, Texas. In 1980, Shields joined WBZ-TV and received New England Emmy Awards for his reporting in 1982 and 1987. Shields now works as a general assignment reporter for the network and lives in the Greater Boston Area. Image: WBZ TV
Julie Kramer served as the disc jockey and photographer at WFNX, the Boston-based alternative rock radio station, for almost 25 years. During her tenure, she met and photographed some of the biggest names in rock ‘n’ roll, such as David Bowie and Nirvana. In 2018, Kramer presented The Basement Archives: Volume One: The Ghosts of WFNX, a photography exhibition featuring her portraits of rock icons. She currently works for the online radio station Indie617.com.