They were big in the 80s and now they’re back. But how does this symbol of power dressing go down in 2020?
- Read more from the spring/summer 2020 edition of The Fashion, our biannual style supplement
Shoulder pads in the 80s were synonymous with adulthood. That’s how we imagined our selves-of-the-future; standing in a flat with big windows and a martini, maybe with some job (lawyer?), wearing shoulder pads. Oh, and a big telly. The shoulder pad, if you cross-ref it with the rest of the image, was more than womanhood: it was professionalism, modernity, hedonism and power. In their 2020 reboot, some – Balenciaga’s – are more nostalgic than others – Balmain’s. A giant trench in a zingy spring green is pure 1983, whereas a sequinned cloak is a bit more robotic and dystopian. But for anyone of a certain age, they’re what you’d wear if a magic trick made you swap bodies with your mother, à la Freaky Friday, even though your actual mother never wore them because she wasn’t a Sloane, and nor would she have worn giant earrings.
The 80s didn’t own shoulder pads. In the 30s, they existed purely to make your waist look smaller. This, being much less extreme than wearing a corset or removing a rib, was a pretty tame look, which took a surprising turn in the 40s, when the shoulders merged with military chic and everyone’s silhouette became gigantic and a bit scary, in sartorial homage to the tanks everyone was rolling all over each other.
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