What The Sharper Image Catalogs Say About Life In The 1980s

Back in the 1980s The Sharper Image was the most cutting edge store in the mall with a mail order catalog to match, the place to go when you wanted to impress people with your expensive and totally cool stuff.

The Sharper Image sold some of the strangest gadgets, electronics, household goods and furniture the world has ever seen, like this bizarro mannequin named Gregory who “deters crime by his strong, masculine appearance”.

Sharper Image shoppers wanted the newest and flashiest exercise machines in their homes, lots of spacey looking antennas on their cars, and a robotic scale that spoke of pounds lost and gained.

The Sharper Image family had kids who reflected their wastefully wealthy yet totally modern to the max lifestyle, so walking was strictly forbidden.

See What Old Sharper Image Catalogs Tell Us About American Life In The 1980s at mental_floss