Brooke here was filming a Bob Hope special in 1981, which was called “Bob Hope’s Spring Fling of Glamour and Comedy” and featured Loni Anderson smooching him and several other famous blond women of the era — hi, Morgan Fairchild — hugging up on him. I am rolling my eyes. (Brooke might have been doing a Princess Diana skit?) Upon further review of this dress, I actually think you could plonk that into the present day and nobody would make a fuss. What dates it, really, is the hair. It’s that big buoyant waterfall of curls, which flows straight down into the ruffles. That hair is tantalizing. That hair has never yet known a split end. That hair looks like the After photo for a home perm kit — the kind that would never actually yield the desired results, and send you weeping straight to a hair salon for a desperation fix — or an ad for AquaNet that’s very misleading about the level of chemical crust it leaves behind on your hair as you seek volume. Oh, the ’80s. So much smoke and mirrors.

[Photo: Ron Galella Collection/Getty]