A vintage shot of Chippendales dancers from the 1980s.
I’ve always found the phenomena of the Chippendales all-male striptease ensemble one of the weirdest 1980s things. And that’s saying a lot when you consider all that decade bestowed upon us—whether we wanted it or not. I mean, the music scene was pretty amazing—and if you want to arm-wrestle me over that fact, you will lose because it’s a fact. Prince put out Controversy and 1999 and Purple Rain. MTV played music videos and Larry Bird was named the MVP of the NBA Finals in 1986 after the Boston Celtics took town the Houston Rockets in Game Six. Okay, that last one is one of my favorite moments from the 80s, but it just proves my point that a lot of great things happened back then. And love them, hate them, or just plain don’t fucking get them, the dancers of Chippendales were everywhere. Just like shoulder pads and spandex.
Much like Gene Simmons and his devotion to slapping the word KISS on anything and everything, the Chippendales’ empire did the very same thing. From calendars to a board game and even a mini hand-held movie viewer so you could watch the beefy dancers in the privacy of your own home, there was something “Chippendales” for everybody. The calendars were incredibly popular items, and are nearly impossible to find now. I’ve included a few choice color photos from the calendars as well as some black and white print ads (which you can buy here) featuring individual dancers. Lastly, I included footage from a workout tape put out by Chippendales called Muscle Motion that is about as cornball as anything I’ve ever laid my eyes on. And trust me, these eyes have seen some cornball shit that you can never unsee. I hope you enjoy this gyrating trip down memory lane!
An image from the 1982 Chippendales calendar.
1985.
A now hard-to-find Chippendales sleep shirt.
The mythical Chippendales “Micro Movie Viewer.”
A promotional photo from the Chippendales appearance on Dolly Parton’s ABC variety show ‘Dolly!’ from 1987.
Footage from the Chippendales 1988 workout video, ‘Muscle Motion.’
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Satanic strippers: Vintage burlesque performers dance with the devil
The Stranglers’ live performance of ‘Nice ‘n’ Sleazy’ with a bunch of strippers from 1978
Exotic dancers of the 1890s
Vintage violence and the ‘dance of death’: Wild images of the ‘Apache’ dancers of Paris