Designing Women (80's Rock Tee Style Graphic)

Designing Women — Vintage 80s TV Tee

Premiering in 1986, Designing Women gave us four women, one Atlanta interior-design firm, and absolutely no shortage of opinions.

Dixie Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts, and Jean Smart starred as Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker, Mary Jo Shively, and Charlene Frazier—the women behind Sugarbaker & Associates. Throw in Meshach Taylor as Anthony Bouvier, and you had one of the great ensemble casts of 1980s television.

The show was funny, Southern, glamorous, and frequently much sharper than the standard sitcom. Creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason used it to tackle sexism, racism, class, homophobia, AIDS, domestic violence, and plenty of other subjects prime-time television wasn't always particularly eager to discuss.

And then there was Julia Sugarbaker. Dixie Carter could turn a perfectly polite conversation into a declaration of war, usually delivering one of her famous speeches while everyone else wisely stayed out of the way. Suzanne brought the beauty-queen narcissism and enormous wardrobe, Mary Jo the sarcasm, and Charlene the wonderfully sincere stories that somehow always involved someone back home in Poplar Bluff.