Sharp shoulders
Big shoulders are back in style and in this era of political angst, we could use the extra armour
For women above a certain age, the term “shoulder pads” has become synonymous with bad taste. After all, we who lived through the Joan Collins Dynasty version shudder at the thought of dressing like a linebacker.
But ’80s power dressing was really about pillaging the closets and film sets of the ’40s for ideas. And now the fashion gurus are actively swinging the pendulum back to sharp shoulders, with a modern twist and unexpected pairings to keep it from being a full-on Alexis Colby costume party. The fall runway looks are now in stores and on the streets, dutifully trickling down from designer to fast fashion all at once.
There are many theories about how fashion reflects the economic climate. To wit: Hemlines rise with stock prices and lipstick sales go up when the Dow goes down. But I would posit the big-shouldered look as a surer reflection of political angst: we all need a little armour right now.
Here is a quickie primer on the history of sharp shoulders. Beginning in the dark heart of the 1930s, Elsa Schiaparelli introduced a style with padded poufs set on top of the shoulder. This look became increasingly militaristic as the war years began, culminating in the1945 classic movie Mildred Pierce, in which Joan Crawford plays an early single mom caught up in a murder plot but armed with killer pinstriped suits and shoulders padded enough to carry the weight of the world.
Cut to the greed decade, when there were so many different shoulder pad options for every layer of clothing that women would have drawers full of Velcro-ed pads and had to decide how many to wear in combination! Swing by the set of 1988s Working Girl and observe women geared up for the battle of the sexes in the boardroom. Note also that era’s matching suiting is back, albeit in the form of pantsuits (even doublebreasted, gasp!) today.
There was a brief flirtation with a sharp shoulder return in 2009. Balmain’s grand crystal-bedecked military jackets with enormous sleeves (quickly embraced by our era’s icons, Gaga and Rihanna) was designer-atthat-time Christophe Decarnin’s take on how to find literal protection from the global recession’s storm.
Cut to this past summer and we see the first inklings of the return. Canadian design duo SMYTHE by co-designers Andrea Lenczner and Christie Smythe has been early on the trend. The label is known for its tasteful fresh takes on international trends epitomized by their most famous fan, the uber-polished Duchess of Cambridge, who has worn their jackets prominently on several occasions.
“Ah yes,” say the pair, who always comment as one voice. “The fashion decade we always made fun of! Now look at us in shoulder pads, stirrup pants and sneakers. The working girl suit of the ’80s was a woman’s way to indicate her worth in the boardroom. It was her suit of armour to approximate a man’s broad shoulders and say, ‘I belong here, too.’ ”
Lenczner and Smythe explain the shift in silhouette. “Now, we crave the inverted triangle silhouette (the one that makes your lower half appear slender) but in a more evolved, approachable way.” And they add a note of positivity here: “Perhaps the recent show of shoulder strength is intrinsic, more a reflection of the power we have. The key difference is no longer needing to forgo our femininity, but rather add to it with a linear and strong shoulder point that sets the drape of the garment. Other than that, it just feels cool right now.”
Fashion gives where it takes away. All the bareness of summer — exposed “cold” shoulders, crop tops, weird new zones such as under- and side-boob — is now padded up. Oversize has been a running theme, driven by the man who is most responsible for this big shoulder redux.
The seeds of this re-trend were sewn in last spring’s Balenciaga collection, where the jackets and coats actually had whale boning inserted across the back of trench coats and big, boxy jackets. This produced a stuck-inside-a-hangar effect of exaggerated shoulders. The label is now designed by fashion’s latest enfant terrible, Demna Gvasalia, who was born in Georgia, Eastern Europe, at the dawn of the ’80s and educated at the home of the Belgian avant-garde, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He was plucked to helm the grand French house when his “antifashion” movement label Vetements started setting the street-style agenda.
“Demna Gvasalia at Vetements first debuted the extreme shoulder. He then brought it to Balenciaga and the bold shoulder quickly caught on in street style,” says Shannon Schafer, senior fashion director at Nordstrom.
“Shoulder and sleeve volume is created through excess fabric and gathering. This new bold shoulder definitely references the pumped-up romance and drama of the ’80s, but the biggest difference is how she’s wearing it (now). The bold shoulder is often paired back with modern denim, for a dress casual mega-mix. She’s also mixing masculine and feminine together. It’s all about unexpected combinations this time around!”
Saint Laurent showed razor-sharp shoulders on runways this fall, with sparkly minidresses cut down to the navel and patent blazers belted to highlight a small waist. Both paired with ’80s-style slouchy boots.
Things were bulkier at Belgian avant-garde label Dries van Noten, more in line with the oversized trend of last year.
And oversized-yet-sleek big shoulders can be found at Jil Sander, the label taken over by Luke and Lucie Meier, who bring their respective ex-
“Perhaps the recent show of shoulder strength is intrinsic, more a reflection of the power we have.” ANDREA LENCZNER AND CHRISTIE SMYTHE SMYTHE DESIGNERS
perience and buzz (Luke at streetwear supernova Supreme and Lucie at Dior) to the label, known for its strict take on luxury.
And Thierry Mugler, a label synonymous with ’80s excess, had almost Vulvanesque exaggerated and pointed shoulders on the brand’s signa- ture leather jackets, cut snug to the body.
Great examples can be found for less if you look at the fast-fashion world: Zara, H&M and, especially, its more ethereal and conceptual “big sister” label, COS.
This is a great look to try out at that end of the cost spectrum. As our collective eye becomes used to the silhouette shift, the sharp shoulder look is going to feel very modern indeed. And the protective padding will at least give us some emotional reassurance from the bigger jawdroppers of the current news cycle.