miami beach style
Miami Beach Renaissance
— CBS
— Alfred Eisenstadt / Life Magazine (1940)
— Ocean Drive Magazine’s 20th Anniersary Cover
— Unidentified flamingo (pinterest)
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (November 15, 2008) was hosted by TV-star, model HEIDI KLUM, and featured USHER, singing and dancing with a seemingly endless parade of beautiful women, confidently strutting (selling) their wares, and looking good.
Fueled mostly by returning World War II soldiers, Miami Beach experienced one of the country’s most significant, post-depression, boom of population and culture.
There were the soldiers, many who had trained on Miami Beach for their service in the South Pacific.
Throughout the post-war 1940s, Life Magazine assigned a number of tourism, fashion, and lifestyle stories focused on Miami Beach.
• OCEAN DRIVE MAGAZINE
• OCEAN DRIVE MAGAZINE (20th Anniversary Party)
• STYLE #1
• MIAMI VICE (SHORT) DOC.
Victoria’s Miami Beach Secret
@ the newly renovated FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL
Collins Avenue
The Marlin Hotel
Al Di Meola
Ford Modeling Agency
1960s — COLLINS AVENUE was the perfect backdrop for the jet-setting lifestyle portrayed on television at the time. Frank Sinatra and Eva Gardner were frequent guests, and the entire RAT PACK performed and partied frequently at the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau hotels.
1970s — Like all of Florida, Miami Beach experienced a decline in the early 1970s, as the war in Vietnam raged, and the space program had ground to an abrupt halt. Collins Avenue and Miami Beach became something of a dilapidated, oceanside, retirement village. Gone was the elegance Miami was known for in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
1980s — MIAMI VICE REVIVAL
When Crime was Cool (And Fashionable)
Sept. 28, 1984 — First Miami Vice scene: A pan from the Carlyle Hotel’s neon sign down to a cigarette lighting Sonny Crockett, who’s annoyed with a group of break-dancing, Tropical B-Boys, with the oversized ’80s boom box loud enough to be heard up and down the Carlyle block of Ocean Drive.
1990s — MIAMI BEACH RENAISSANCE
Venus and Mars
VERSACE
MADONNA
PRINCE
Moon Over Miami
WHEN THE BEACH WAS HOT
ART DECO (Architectural Style)
POOL TOYS (Aquatic Style)
Paradise Lost (Miami’s Vice)
SOUTH BEACH RENAISSANCE
VERSACE (Murder In The Morning)
MADONNA (“Sex” in Miami)
PRINCE (Glamorous)
DIAMOND TEETH MARY McLAIN (Devil Music)
@ Tobacco Road
SCOTT PUTESKY (Running With The Devil)
Palm Beach
FANTASY ISLAND
HELLO MOLLIE! (IMMIGRANT SONG)
THE WOMEN OF PALM BEACH
b/ Dominick Dunne (Vanity Fair)
“Vice (Miami)”
Melle Mel & The Furious Five
w/ The Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section
Miami Vice Soundtrack
Jan Hammer
((( ! )))
Time Magazine
Cocaine City
November 23, 1981 — Time Magazine describing Miami as a city awash in cocaine, and noting its ranking as “The Murder Capital of the World,” was the biggest blow to South Florida’s tourism industry.
• “COCAINE COWBOYS” (2006) A documentary film, telling the story of a city built by, addicted to, and nearly destroyed by the Colombian white powder and the shooting war between the Colombian and Cuban gangs fighting for control of Miami.
This is the real-life story that inspired “Miami Vice” and “Scarface.
“Voices” by Russ Ballard
“Voices” (above) As Don Johnson pilots his Chris Craft Stinger 390X
1980s Soundtrack
A selection of some of the most memorable Miami Vice songs and scenes.
• “Miami Vice Theme” (opening credits by Jan Hammer)
• “In the Air Tonight” (Phil Collins’ closed the 1984 pilot)
• “Brothers In Arms” (Dire Straits “Edgar Allan Poe”)
• “Smuggler’s Blues” (Glenn Frey “Smuggler’s Blues”)
• “You Belong to The City” (Glenn Frey “Prodigal Son”)
Under Florida’s “stand your ground” law, it is legal to shoot anybody for any reason as long as you are standing on the ground.”
Making Miami “Cool” Again
by DAVE BARRY
(Miami Herald)
I came to Miami in the early ’80s, when the Cocaine Cowboy era was still going strong and Miami’s image — not without reason — was horrible. Time magazine had published its now-famous cover story Paradise Lost, encapsulated by this cheerful sentence: “An epidemic of violent crime, a plague of illicit drugs and a tidal wave of refugees have slammed into South Florida with the destructive power of a hurricane.”
Which was, more or less, true. The bad publicity took its toll: Tourism suffered because people were afraid to visit Miami. I wrote an essay about this for the Herald’s Sunday magazine, Tropic. To promote it, we gave out bumper stickers that said “Come Back To Miami”
Readers loved those bumper stickers. But not everybody down here thought it was funny. Miami’s civic leaders — the politicians, the tourism people, the Chamber of Commerce — hated the jokes and the bad publicity. They were openly jealous of Orlando, with its Mouse-tastic attractions and safe, antiseptic, family-friendly image. Our leaders wanted Miami to be more like that. But Miami wasn’t Orlando, not even close. Bad things kept happening down here.
Then, in 1984, Miami Vice happened. Theoretically, this should have been our civic leaders’ worst nightmare: People were avoiding Miami because they thought it was infested with violent drug criminals, and then along came a hugely popular TV show that presented Miami as a place that was … infested with violent drug criminals!
But here’s the thing: Miami Vice made Miami look cool. Yes, many drug busts went down on the show, and many fatal shots were fired. But they were fired by Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas! Who were hot! And who wore designer jackets! Over pastel designer T-shirts! And designer linen pants! And designer Italian loafers WITHOUT SOCKS!
The premise was ridiculous, of course — “undercover” Miami police officers Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs, looking nothing like any undercover police officers anywhere ever, driving around in flashy, insanely expensive cars and boats, emitting melodramatic dialogue and inevitably ending each episode taking down a drug kingpin — in Miami Vice, three out of every four Miami residents were drug kingpins — in a hail of bullets, accompanied by a hip (for the ’80s) music soundtrack.
And guess what? Everybody loved it. Including Miami. Especially Miami. For one thing, the city looked pretty good, in a seedy, tropical, lush, degenerate, Eurotrash supermodel way. It looked cool.
It also looked exciting. Miamians began to see the fact that we weren’t Orlando as a good thing. Orlando was a place where you went to stand in line in the heat with your whining kids for 73 minutes to ride around in spinning teacups for 73 seconds. Miami was a place you went without your kids (maybe even without your spouse) to drink mojitos and smoke cigars (or maybe something else) and stay up all night and have an adventure. If it felt foreign, disorganized, a little out of control, even a little dangerous … hey, that was cool. That was Miami.
At least that was the image. It’s still the essence of our image, 30 years later. Which is why I think Miami owes a debt of gratitude to Miami Vice. There should be a street named after it. And the street signs should be pastel. And somewhere on the street there should be a statue of Rico and Sonny, aiming guns at a kingpin only they can see.
And the Sonny statue should have stubble.
— Dave Barry (Miami Herald Columnist)
SOUTH BEACH RENAISSANCE
colors …
This is a Voyage into Sound
inst. of change
the players
instruments
Miami Beach (Timeline)
When The Beach Was Hot
Miami Beach Style ( 1.)
Miami Beach Style ( 2.)
Paradise Lost
Murder In The Morning
Miami Manhattan Connection
Prince Glam Slam (Washington Avenue)
Mary McLain @ Tobacco Road
