An Eighties revival is threatening our love affair with the Seventies. MAXINE GORDON asks which decade was best?

EIGHTIES singing sensation Matt Goss may have left town, but the current craze for all things from the 1980s shows no sign of waning. Matt Goss, one half of hitsters Bros, who played York's Grand Opera House on Saturday night, is just the latest (fallen) star from the 1980s to hit the road again in search of 21st-century fame.

Contemporaries Paul Young, Tony Hadley and Paul Weller have also been gigging again, giving fans in York a welcome night of nostalgia. And Duran Duran have reformed and will be releasing a new album later this year.

If that weren't enough, fashion has turned back the clock two decades, bringing back into vogue such Eighties eccentricities as coloured stilettos, ra ra skirts and bat-winged tops.

Also, York's one and only Eighties bar has opened. Reflex, in the former Edwards site in George Hudson Street, seeks to recreate the era of the New Romantics, Wham and Boy George and comes complete with a revolving dance floor, TV screens (replaying Adam Ant videos and the like) and a bar-shop selling Eighties essentials such as sunvisers, head and wrist bands and headboppers.

Who said the Seventies were the decade that taste forgot?

Fancy dress shops are even beginning to stock Eighties clothes, such is the demand among party-goers who once only had eyes for platform boots and flares.

So are the Eighties the new Seventies?

Who better to answer that than Tony Collins, manager of Reflex and his wife Bev, who runs York's Seventies bar, Flares in York's Tanner Row.

Bev says: I love the 1970s...

"I left school in 1979 and my era was really the 1980s, but I still think the Seventies were the best.

The music was better: it's easier to dance to than all that futuristic stuff from the New Romantics. And you can only move your shoulders to Soft Cell's Tainted Love and bend your knees to UB40.

The fashion was great fun too. I do remember clothes from the Eighties - stilettos, pencil skirts, leg warmers and ra ra skirts, but Seventies gear was more outrageous. At the weekend I wear a tiger cat suit and platform boots at Flares.

People tried to be "cool" in the Eighties. It was more about being with the in-crowd. People didn't gave a damn in the Seventies - well they couldn't in those shoes, could they?

Eighties clothes are back in the shops now: they are the height of fashion.

That means if you wear them and go out, you don't look like you are dressed-up. If you wear silver glitter boots people know you are dressed up.

TV in the Seventies was better too - The Partridge Family, The Osmonds and The Jacksons all had their own TV shows.

But the best thing about the Seventies had to be the Bay City Rollers. I just loved them."

Tony says: I love the 1980s...

"The music in the Eighties was brilliant: Duran Duran, Wham, Erasure, Madness, The Specials, UB40, Dexy's Midnight Runners. Definitely better than sounds from the Seventies.

What's great as well is that the Eighties was the age of the music video. The tracks we play at Reflex, probably 80 per cent have a video which we play at the same time.

Fashion was pretty outrageous too. Look at Adam Ant or Boy George. We have a DJ who calls himself the Dandy Highwayman and dresses up like Adam Ant and we have another who copies Mr T from the A Team.

People are enjoying dressing up to come to the club: we've had girls turn up in ra ra skirts and leg warmers and I've been wearing a Hawaiian shirt like Don Johnson in Miami Vice.

It is easier to dress up in Seventies outfits because it's hard to get authentic Eighties gear. But that will change.

Fantasy World in Fulford Road is starting to stock Eighties stuff and the great thing about Eighties fashion is that there was more than one look.

You could be a punk, a Mod or a New Romantic.

Men wore lipstick and eyeliner. Some of our DJs are doing that...and I think I could be persuaded to do the same if it really took off again. Anything for a laugh.

The only thing I might draw the line at is wearing a Boy George outfit.

I'm not so sure I'm brave enough for that."

Taste the difference:

1970s:

Music: Jacksons, T Rex, Bee Gees, Abba

Fashion: Flares, platforms, Afro hair, gold medallions

Film: Ryan O'Neill, Woody Allen, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda

TV: Fawlty Towers, Six Million Dollar Man, Mind Your Language

Food: Prawn cocktail, Black Forest gateaux, vol-au-vents

Bad taste rating: Fashion faux pas, but thank you for the music - ***

1980s:

Music: Duran Duran, New Order, Erasure, A-Ha, Boy George

Fashion: Baggy trousers, Pixie boots, back-combed hair, silver crosses

Film: Rob Lowe, Charlie Sheen, Demi Moore, Jodie Foster

TV: Brideshead Revisited, Dynasty, Minder

Food: Nouvelle cuisine, curry, deep-pan pizza

Bad taste rating: A decade for posing with a purpose; more pretentious than cheesy - **

Updated: 09:27 Tuesday, July 22, 2003