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Shoulder pads are a type of fabric-covered padding used in men's and women's clothing to give the wearer the illusion of having broader and less sloping shoulders. In the beginning, shoulder pads were shaped as a semicircle or small triangle and were stuffed with wool, cotton, or sawdust. They were positioned at the top of the sleeve to extend the shoulder line. A good example of this is their use in "leg o' mutton" sleeves or the smaller puffed sleeves which are based on styles from the 1890s. In men's styles, shoulder pads are often used in suits, jackets, and overcoats, usually sewn at the top of the shoulder and fastened between the lining and the outer fabric layer. In women's clothing, their inclusion depends on the fashion taste of the day. Although from a non-fashion point of view they are generally for people with narrow or sloping shoulders, there are also quite a few cases in which shoulder pads will be necessary for a suit or blazer in order to compensate for certain fabrics' natural properties, most notably suede blazers, due to the weight of the material. There are also periods when pads intended to exaggerate the width of the shoulders are favored. As such, they were popular additions to clothing (particularly business clothing) during the 1930s and 1940s; the 1980s (encompassing a period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s); and the late 2000s to early 2010s.
In sports, the shoulder pad was invented in 1877 by a Princeton football player and was used in American football. [1] In women's fashion, shoulder pads originally became popular in the 1930s when fashion designers Elsa Schiaparelli and Marcel Rochas included them in their designs of 1931. [2] Though Rochas may have been the first to present them, [3] Schiaparelli was the most consistent in promoting them during the 1930s and '40s and it is her name that came to be most attached to them. [4] [5] Both designers had been influenced by the extravagant shoulder flanges and small waists of traditional Southeast Asian ceremonial dress. [6] [7] The following year, Joan Crawford wore them in the film Letty Lynton [8] in a dress designed by costume designer Adrian. This dress was widely copied and sold in Macy's department stores, helping to popularize the look. [9] Costume designer Travis Banton's broad-shouldered designs for Marlene Dietrich also influenced public tastes. [10]
Soon, broad, padded shoulders dominated fashion, [11] [12] seen even in eveningwear [13] and perhaps reaching a peak of variety in 1935-36, [14] when even Vionnet showed them; [15] [16] Rochas presented high, pinched-up shoulders; [17] and Piguet outdid even Rochas by extending his widened shoulders vertically like oars or paddles. [18] Amid all this competing extravagance, the widest shoulders were still said to come from Schiaparelli, [19] who hadn't given them up even when they briefly dropped out of favor with designers in 1933. [20]
War was in the air during this entire period, and fashion reflected it in epaulettes and other martial details, [21] [22] [23] but after World War II began in 1939, women's fashions became even more militarised. [24] [25] Jackets, coats, and even dresses in particular were influenced by masculine styles and shoulder pads became bulkier and were positioned at the top of the shoulder to create a solid look that sloped slightly toward the neck. [26]
The shoulder-padded style had now become universal, found in all garments except lingerie, so standard that when US designer Claire McCardell wanted to remove them from her garments in 1940, her financiers feared their sales would suffer and insisted that pads be retained. McCardell's innovative response was to put them in with very simple stitching so that they could be easily removed by the wearer, prefiguring the flexibility of the velcro-fastened shoulder pads of the 1980s. [27] The following year, British designer Molyneux also eliminated shoulder pads, [28] part of a prophetic trend in high fashion that would be carried further by Balenciaga in 1945 [29] and culminate in Dior's slope-shouldered 1947 Corolle collection. [30] [31]
Big shoulders were still popular in 1945, when Joan Crawford wore a fur coat with wide, exaggerated shoulders, also designed by Adrian, in the film Mildred Pierce .
In men's fashion, zoot suits had their own share of popularity. Basically, a zoot suit is based on a "regular" 2-piece suit, yet one or two sizes larger, so it was supposed to be padded "like a lunatic's cell."[ citation needed ]
During this period, stiff, felt-covered cotton batting was the material used for most shoulder pads, a combination that allowed for easy adjustment [32] but didn't hold its shape very well when washed. [33]
Balenciaga's 1945 endorsement of sloped shoulders signaled the direction that fashion was heading, and this was confirmed with Christian Dior's transformative 1947 Corolle collection, characterized by a striking natural shoulder line. [34]
The popularity of shoulder pads with the public, too, ultimately tapered off later in the decade, after the war was over and women yearned for a softer, more feminine look. [35]
During the late 1940s to about 1951, some dresses featured a soft, smaller shoulder pad with so little padding as to be barely noticeable. Its function seems to have been to slightly shape the shoulder line. By the 1950s, shoulder pads appeared only in jackets and coats—not in dresses, knitwear or blouses as they had previously during the heyday of the early 1940s.
Some of the rounded-shoulder, barrel-shaped coats of the late 1950s, particularly those of Balenciaga [36] and Givenchy, [37] contained shoulder pads to widen the rounded line. [38]
By the early 1960s, coat and jacket shoulder pads slowly became less noticeable [39] (with Marc Bohan's fall 1963 collection for Dior a notable exception) [40] [41] and midway through the decade, shoulder pads had disappeared. [42] [43]
Shoulder pads made their next appearance in women's clothing in the early 1970s, through the influence of British fashion designer Barbara Hulanicki and her label Biba. Biba produced designs influenced by the styles of the 1930s and 1940s, and so a soft version of the shoulder pad was revived. Ossie Clark was another London designer using shoulder pads at the time, showing forties-revival suits as early as 1968. [44] During the first five years of the 1970s, a number of designers in other fashion capitals also presented padded shoulders with an explicit 1940s inspiration, constituting a minor trend that peaked in 1971. [45] In 1970, Yves Saint Laurent showed forties-themed padded shoulders; [46] in 1971, Angelo Tarlazzi, [47] Yves Saint Laurent, [48] [49] Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé, [50] Marc Bohan for Dior, [51] Valentino, [52] Jean-Louis Scherrer, [53] Guy Laroche, [54] Michel Goma for Patou, [55] Michele Aujard, [56] Thierry Mugler, [57] and many New York designers; [58] [59] in 1972, Jean-Louis Scherrer [60] and Scott Barrie; [61] in 1973, Valentino, [62] Jean-Louis Scherrer, [63] and Daniel Hechter; [64] and in 1974, Jean-Louis Scherrer [65] and Nino Cerruti. [66] These padded shoulders never reached mainstream acceptance, though; [67] Saint Laurent's forties-revival attempts in particular were widely criticized, [68] and so the look was relatively limited in reach, with designers showing and the public preferring the relaxed, natural, often jeans-based clothing styles typical of the times. [69] [70] [71] [72]
During the mid-1970s, Saint Laurent and a few others did show an occasional padded-shoulder jacket scattered among the popular ethnic and peasant looks, but sensibly-proportioned, easy, and contemporary in appearance instead of being part of a forties look, [73] [74] [75] suitable for the standard officewear women were preferring as they entered the workforce in greater numbers during the decade, [76] [77] a look codified with the 1977 publications of John T. Molloy's The Woman's Dress for Success Book and Michael Korda's Success!. [78] [79] The shoulder padding occasionally seen in these business blazers was unobtrusive, no more pronounced than in a standard men's suit jacket, and the most high-fashion versions carried no pads at all, in line with the unconstructed Big Look that dominated the fashion world at the time.
For fall 1978, designers in all fashion capitals suddenly endorsed wide, padded shoulders across the board, introducing the broad-shouldered styles that would characterize the 1980s. [80] [81] [82] There had been some signs of a move toward broader shoulders the previous year, [83] but it would be a January 1978 collection from Yves Saint Laurent that would be cited as the first clear expression of the trend when Saint Laurent showed a handful of jackets with exaggerated shoulder padding over slim trousers. [84] [85] Jean-Louis Scherrer showed somewhat similar square-shouldered designs two days before Saint Laurent, [86] [87] but it was Saint Laurent's shoulders that made an impression on the press. [88] [89] In later years, there would be various claims about who began the eighties big-shoulders trend, with Norma Kamali, [90] Giorgio Armani, and several others variously cited as the exclusive originator, but Saint Laurent was the designer credited by sources at its 1978 inception with launching the trend.
When most of the rest of the fashion world showed broad-shouldered looks a couple of months later, there would be two distinct versions of it. The first, favored by Paris designers like Saint Laurent, [91] Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé, [92] Thierry Mugler, [93] Claude Montana, [94] Pierre Cardin, [95] [96] Jean-Claude de Luca, [97] [98] Anne Marie Beretta, [99] France Andrevie, [100] and a number of others, was an explicit but exaggerated 1940s-revival silhouette [101] [102] based largely on tailored suits and dresses, though more a slim-skirted haute couture forties look than the flared-skirt, World War II Utility Suit-inspired shapes flirted with by Saint Laurent in the early seventies, [103] no platform shoes or snoods this time. This first version was referred to as retro [104] and included 1940s accessories, [105] [106] [107] [108] some mid-20th-century sci-fi looks, [109] [110] [111] [112] and military influences. [113] [114]
The second was a more contemporary sportswear look in which shoulder pads were added to easy but slimmed-down casualwear, favored largely by US [115] and Italian designers like Perry Ellis, [116] [117] Norma Kamali, [118] Calvin Klein, [119] and Giorgio Armani. [120] [121]
This time, the shoulder line was usually continuous from outer edge to neck, without the dip toward the center seen in the 1940s, and the pads used, even when enormous, were much lighter and held their shape better than the ones used in the 1940s, [122] now most often made of foam and other lightweight, well-shaped, moldable materials. [123] As shoulder pads hadn't been this common in womenswear in decades, some in the fashion industry worried that the tailoring skills necessary for them had been lost and measures were taken to train workers in their proper placement. [124] [125] [126]
Initially, this big change from the natural shoulder of the sixties and seventies could be extreme, [127] [128] [129] with some designers showing shoulders three feet wide [130] and others presenting pagoda shoulders, [131] [132] and the buying public was strongly resistant. [133] [134] [135] [136] Undeterred, designers continued to present the look, [137] [138] [139] slowly acclimating the public to it [140] [141] [142] until it became one of the most characteristic and popular fashion trends of the 1980s. [143]
Most designers did adopt the new trend of padded shoulders, but a few prominent designers, Kenzo, Ralph Lauren, and Emanuel Ungaro among them, refrained, at least at first. [144] Kenzo mostly adhered to his popular, easy, comfortable clothes even during the shoulder-padded eighties. [145] [146] [147] [148] Ralph Lauren continued with his familiar English country classics [149] and devoted his fall 1978 collection to a cowboy theme, his shoulders the same size they had been in previous seasons. [150] [151] He wouldn't adopt the new big-shouldered silhouette until the following year [152] and it would remain only a minor part of his offerings into the eighties. Ungaro would also only resist the new broad-shoulders trend for a season or two, during which he continued to show the easy, seventies Soft Look/Big Look, [153] before enthusiastically adopting big-shoulder styles in 1979 [154] and making the look his signature the following decade. [155]
Standard, mass-market menswear during the 1970s continued to feature standard, unobtrusive shoulder pads shaping suits and sport jackets, but more high-fashion menswear basically followed the same trajectory as high-fashion womenswear, with a delay of about a season or two. Thus, there was a removal of shoulder pads and other internal structuring during the easy, oversized, unconstructed Big Look or Soft Look era of the mid-seventies, [156] spearheaded in womenswear by Kenzo Takada in 1973-74 [157] [158] and in menswear by Giorgio Armani a couple of years later. [159] When high-fashion womenswear reverted to highly structured garments with big shoulder pads for fall of 1978, high-fashion menswear followed suit the following year, [160] Cardin replicating his women's pagoda shoulders in his men's suits [161] and even Armani adding unusually pronounced shoulder pads to his men's jackets, [162] [163] a trend that would continue during the following decade.
The early 1980s continued a trend begun in the late 1970s toward a resurgence of interest in the ladies' evening wear styles of the early 1940s, with peplums, batwing sleeves and other design elements of the times reinterpreted for a new market. [164] [165] [166] The shoulder pad helped define the silhouette [167] and continued to be made in the cut foam versions introduced in the fall 1978 collections, [168] especially in well-cut suits reminiscent of the World War II era. These styles had initially been resisted by the public at their 1978 introduction, [169] [170] [171] but designers continued to present exaggerated shoulder pads into the eighties so that they saturated the market and women did come to adopt them, with everyone from television celebrities to politicians wearing them. [172] For example, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was internationally noted for her adoption of these fashions as they more and more became the norm. [173] [174] [175] Before too long, these masculinized shapes were adopted by women seeking success in the corporate world, women who in the mid-seventies had worn sensibly-proportioned blazers for the same purpose, [176] [177] and exaggerated shoulder pads later became seen as an icon of women's attempts to smash the glass ceiling, a mission that was aided by their notable appearance in the US TV series Dynasty, [178] [179] whose stars' broad-shouldered, Valentino-inspired outfits [180] were designed by Nolan Miller. [181]
As the decade wore on, exaggerated shoulder pads became the defining fashion statement of the era, known as power dressing (a term that had previously been applied to the more sensibly proportioned business blazers of the mid-seventies) [182] and bestowing the perception of status and position onto those who wore them. Some of the exaggerated shoulder pad sizes from the fall 1978 introduction of the trend became accepted and even common among the public by the mid-eighties. [183] [184] Every garment from the brassiere upwards would come with its own set of shoulder pads, [185] [186] with women frequently layering one shoulder-padded garment atop another, a trend launched by designers in 1978. [187] [188]
To prevent excessive shoulder padding, velcro was sewn onto the pads so that the wearer could choose how many sets to wear. [189] [190] [191] The ability to remove shoulder pads also helped prevent deforming the pads in the wash, [192] but discomfort could result if the pad wasn't attached securely to the velcro strip and the rough side scratched the skin. [193] Other problems experienced by women as shoulder pads became widespread included slipping and displacement of the pads in oversized garments [194] and interference with purse straps. [195]
Prominent designers of big shoulders who had name recognition with the public during this period included Norma Kamali, Emanuel Ungaro, and Donna Karan. Kamali was one of a number of designers who, instead of just reviving highly tailored 1940s-style suits, added large shoulder pads to more contemporary sportswear styles, achieving great fame and influence in 1980 by showing sweatshirt-fabric versions of the flounced, hip-yoked, mini-length skirts she had introduced in 1979 (called rah-rah skirts in the UK) [196] and presenting them with hugely shoulder-padded tops in the same material. [197] [198] [199] Some made the plausible claim that the worldwide success of this collection is what finally made shoulder pads acceptable to the public after two or three years of designers promoting them. [200] Ungaro became perhaps the most commercially successful of the Paris designers of the period [201] [202] by maximizing the use of seductive-looking shirring, ruching, and draping [203] in large-shouldered dresses and suits, [204] [205] reintroducing a Schiaparelli-era trend of Edwardian revival. [206] [207] Donna Karan, who had achieved fame in the 1970s as one of the designers behind the Anne Klein label, opened her own house in the mid-eighties, specializing in versatile separates for working women as she had in the seventies, but with eighties-style big shoulder pads [208] and more formal glamor added to conform to the times. [209] Though distracting to the eye today, exaggerated shoulder pads were so normal during the eighties that the huge shoulders of Karan, Ungaro, and others were often not even commented on by fashion writers.
Throughout the Fall 1978-through-1980s big-shoulder-pads period, designers and fashion writers often said that the current year's shoulders were not as big as the previous year's. [210] [211] [212] [213] [214] [215] Often, means besides or in addition to shoulder pads were used to enlarge the shoulder, [216] including puff-top sleeves, [217] [218] [219] tucks and pleats, [220] [221] shoulder flanges, [222] [223] and stiffened ruffles. [224] [225] Yet, pronounced shoulder padding continued in high fashion through the mid-eighties. [226] [227] [228] [229] The most consistent in showing particularly huge ones was probably Claude Montana, [230] [231] who declared in 1985, "Shoulders forever!" [232] Nicknamed "King of the Shoulder Pad," Montana's silhouette designs were credited for defining the 1980s power-dressing era. [233] There were some designers who never really took them up, particularly Japanese designers like Kenzo and Issey Miyake, [234] but by and large, most put them in everything, with almost all creating their own versions of the heavily structured, prominently shoulder-padded eighties suit jacket, even normally independent designers like Mary McFadden, Jean Muir, André Courrèges, and Giorgio di Sant'Angelo.
Eighties designers even incorporated big shoulder pads when they were doing revival styles from earlier, non-shoulder-padded eras like the 1950s and 1960s. For instance, a version of the 1950s chemise dress was widely shown by designers from the 1978 inception of the big-shoulder era into the eighties, but with shoulder pads instead of authentic 1950s sloped shoulders. [235] [236] [237] Similarly, when Thierry Mugler did sixties-revival styles in 1985, [238] [239] they included his characteristic enormous shoulder pads. [240] Even sixties-revivalist Stephen Sprouse showed his period-perfect shift and trapeze minidresses in the eighties with broad-shouldered jackets and topcoats. [241] Designers producing more eighties-looking minidresses added shoulder pads because they felt that prominent shoulders helped balance out the increased expanse of leg. [242] During a brief general designer return to a sort of mid-seventies style of long dirndl skirts and shawls for Fall 1981, [243] [244] [245] most shoulders remained broad and padded, [246] very unlike the seventies.
All of this had an effect on the public, so that by the end of the era, some mass-market shoulder pads were the size of dinner plates and people were no longer shocked by them as they had been at their 1978 introduction.
During the mid-eighties, though, there were clear signs of a move away from big shoulder pads among several prominent designers, with Vivienne Westwood introducing her famous 1985-86 mini-crini [247] specifically to, as she put it, "kill this big shoulder." [248] [249] Christian Lacroix's celebrated mini-pouf skirt collections of 1986-87 were dominated by sloping, fichu shoulders, [250] [251] and even Karl Lagerfeld, who had been an early leader in the 1978 move to huge shoulders, for 1986 took pads from the shoulders and placed them visibly on the outside of the hips. [252] [253] Two years later, he would proclaim that shoulders would now be "tiny." [254] [255] Yves Saint Laurent had initiated the eighties big-shoulder trend in January 1978 and had been a shoulder-pad stalwart throughout the intervening years, but in 1988 even his shoulders, while still padded, [256] had been noticeably narrowed. [257] The two designers most noted for showing huge shoulders at the start of the era, Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana, brought their shoulders down in size somewhat mid-decade, [258] [259] with Montana giving up big shoulders entirely by 1988, when he began showing collections with completely natural shoulders. [260] Avant-garde designers like Adeline André [261] and Marc Audibet [262] [263] had long shown sloped shoulders with no pads, as had Romeo Gigli, [264] who was hailed as the most prophetic designer of the end of the eighties. [265] He showed almost exclusively natural, sloping shoulders, even on tailored jackets. [266] [267] This direction among designers was clear enough [268] [269] [270] that in The Washington Post's New Year in/out list for 1989, "Shoulder pads" were listed as out and "Shoulders" were listed as in. [271]
The public and retailers, though, had embraced shoulder pads wholeheartedly by the end of the decade, feeling that they filled out their form [272] [273] and gave clothes a more saleable "hanger appeal." [274] Shoulder pad manufacturers were flourishing, with literally millions of pads produced every week. [275] Many women seemed reluctant to give up big shoulder pads as designers began sending new signals in the late eighties. [276] Prominent shoulder pads would not completely disappear until into the nineties.
In menswear, the exaggerated shoulder pads that had been introduced into high-fashion clothing in 1979 would continue to various degrees throughout the eighties, even becoming mainstream, [277] with many everyday business suits having more pronounced shoulders than had usually been worn in the seventies. [278] High-fashion shoulder pad shapes would vary with the whims of designers, a sharp-edged pad preferred one season, [279] [280] a more rounded pad preferred another. [281] [282] Part of what drove these styles was the increased proliferation of serious working out in the eighties after widespread fitness and health pursuits had emerged in the seventies. [283] [284] Near-bodybuilder physiques became normal sights starting in the eighties for everyday people, both on the streets and in advertising, [285] [286] and jacket shapes seemed to echo this, [287] [288] sometimes by padding the shoulders and shaping the cut even more to a V-shape, [289] other times by leaving out or reducing the pads to allow the newly built-up wearer's own body to give the jacket shape. [290] By the end of the eighties, there was a fad for often brightly colored sport jackets with big shoulders worn over deep-cut, also often brightly colored muscle tank tops or string tank shirts, or even no shirt at all, letting a well-worked-out torso show [291] and sometimes allowing the shoulder-padded jacket to slide off the wearer's own chiseled shoulder, a style that would continue into the early nineties.
The shoulder pad fashion carried over from the late 1980s with continued popularity in the early 1990s, but wearers' tastes were changing due to a backlash against 1980s culture. [292] Some designers continued to produce ranges featuring shoulder pads into the mid-1990s, as shoulder pads were prominent in women's formal suits and matching top-bottom attire, highly exemplified in earlier episodes of The Nanny from 1993 and 1994, where costume designer Brenda Cooper outfitted star Fran Drescher in things like late-eighties-style square-shouldered jackets by Moschino and Patrick Kelly. [293] The velcro-fastened shoulder pads of the eighties were still familiar items in the early nineties. In 1993, a US patent was even registered for a removable shoulder pad that contained a hidden pocket to hide valuables. [294] But as the decade wore on, shoulder-padded styles became outdated and were shunned by young and fashion-conscious wearers. Appearances were reduced to smaller, subtler versions augmenting the shoulder lines of jackets and coats.
The late 2000s and early 2010s saw the resurgence of shoulder pads. Many young women imitated pop artists, mainly Lady Gaga and Rihanna, who were known for their use of shoulder pads in their stylistic outfits. There was a large presence of shoulder pads on many runways, in fashion designer collections, and a revival of 1980s trends became mainstream among many people who were interested in them. By the 2009-2010 seasons, shoulder pads had made their way back into the mainstream market. [295] By 2010 many retailers like Wal-Mart had shoulder pads on at least half of all women's tops and blouses. [296]
The late 2010s saw another resurgence of shoulder pads. With the rise of the Me Too movement and other female empowerment movements, the increase of women being elected to political positions, and a continuing revival of 1980s trends, many are opting to wear clothes with shoulder pads. [297] [298]
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Schiaparelli and Rochas introduced militaristic, wide shoulders, using shoulder pads for coats and jackets.
...Marcel Rochas...is given credit for the first padded shoulders...
Schiaparelli...established the silhouette for several years to come.
...Dior's [New Look]...had been preceded by thirteen uninterrupted years of the square-shouldered Schiaparelli-initiated look.
Both Rochas and Schiaparelli were influenced by the 1931 Exposition Coloniale in Paris, which showed wide-shouldered Javanese and Balinese costumes and Bangkok temple dancers with winged shoulders and tiny waists.
The Indo-Chinese costumes at the 'Exposition Coloniale' in Paris in 1931 inspired Schiaparelli and Rochas to imitate the extended shoulders by introducing shoulder pads.
...[C]lothing designed by Travis Banton – broad-shouldered, outsized jackets... – was worn by Marlene Dietrich...[and] was widely copied.
...[T]he mainstream daytime silhouette established by 1934 prevailed until the end of the war: a tightly waisted line with wide, if not padded, shoulders, and a straight, narrow skirt.
Focus on the raised waist, emphasized by widened, heavier shoulders... The architectural V from shoulders to small fitted waist...
Most evening dresses were...wide at the shoulders...
Everywhere wide shoulders hovered over tiny waists...
Even Vionnet, the queen of femininity,...widened her shoulders...
High shoulders were favoured by Vionnet...Vionnet['s] shoulders stood square and high, with folded fullness at the top of the sleeves.
High shoulders were favored by...Rochas....Rochas's spring suit has stiff shoulders...
Piguet's were shaped like canoe paddles, rising nearly to the ears.
...Schiaparelli['s]...padded shoulders were the widest...
The high point of the Paris autumn collections was the demise of shoulder padding – exaggeration was now démodé. Only Schiaparelli continued to pad her...shoulders. Her choice prevailed.
Europe bristled with war scares and...the couture reflected the prevailing mood. Shirred breastplates put a brave front on evening dress, crowns and cocks were printed on blouses, epaulettes broadened shoulders, and braid or frogging adorned almost every chest.
Daytime looks are severe and military, with square epauletted shoulders, frogging, plumed hats...Schiaparelli leads the military camp with regiments of fitted suits, drummer boy jackets and a forward 'putsch' of hats.
Schiaparelli's woollen capes with shoulders like an admiral's epaulettes, also seen in more modified versions at Alix and Molyneux.
Suits ranged from the frankly military to the rather military...
Then came the war...One popular evening gown of the period was adorned with a huge swooping Air Corps wing of gold Iamé, beginning at one hip and curving upward across the bosom to the opposite shoulder....[G]irls who had no intention of joining the Women's Army Corps wore copies of WAC hats decked out with sequins.
In the '40s, the shoulder shape was what [shoulder-pad manufacturer Harold] Lopato calls 'saddle-shaped,' or sloping in the center. The pads were rigid.
When [Claire McCardell] insisted on removing shoulder pads, which had prevailed since the early thirties,...her backers...considered this uncommercial. McCardell arrived at a compromise: she tacked shoulder pads inside so that they could be easily removed.
Molyneux, like McCardell in America, removed shoulder padding...
Balenciaga...softened and dropped the shoulder farther than any other couturier...
In late 1946, the Orphic couturier [Christian Dior] sketched abundant skirts barely twelve inches from the floor, with unpadded shoulders but stuffed brassieres and shoes and hats that made men gasp.
[Dior's] New Look...arrived on 12 February 1947...Dior's...woman had soft neat shoulders...
...Elizabeth Simmons, owner of Ardis School of Design[,]...recommends cotton batting-filled pads...because they are more adjustable.
In the 40's,...shoulder pads were almost always made of stiff cotton batting and covered with felt....The pads looked great until the dress or coat was washed, in which case there were noticeable lumps and bumps.
...[T]he removal of square padding left shoulders naturally rounded. These new shoulders were...sloped and unpadded...
[W]omen were eyeing clothes with passionate longing....[Dior's 1947] New Look provoked extremes of delight in women, for whom each dress and suit was an orgy of all things most feminine...Shoulders are gently natural.
The Balenciaga coats have wide, well-rounded shoulders. The gray tweed has pads to support shoulders....The Balenciaga suit:...shoulders widened in a sculptured curve...
Givenchy...suits...had good, big, wide shoulders....Most of the sleeves were set in, and it was evident that there must have been a good hunk of shoulder pad lurking underneath each one.
Jacques Heim's collection contained a bit of the rounded, wide shoulder look...Many of his suits appear to have some padding in them...
There was not a square shoulder in sight.
Dior alone went all out for the square and padded shoulder.
Marc Bohan, designer for the House of Dior, sent his models trotting out today with the broad, padded shoulders of a high-fashion football team.
In the 50's, business was 'still good — but down about one‐third from what it was during the 40's.' As for shoulder‐pad business in the 60's, [shoulder pad manufacturer Harold Lopato] simply says, 'It wasn't a particularly good decade for shoulders'.
[In 1965,] [s]houlders in general were narrow...
Ossie Clark...turns to the recent past for fawn jersey tailored suits with square shoulders, a forties-through-sixties-eyes look.
This year's...Forties...peaked shoulders, platform soles, box pleated dresses, tight black satin and wildly dyed chunky fur jackets turn up in collection after collection...
Yves Saint Laurent was good for a few laughs...An obvious tart...sashayed through the salon. She represented the spirit of the nineteen-forties....The first spurts of laughter were followed by nervous reflection....Was Saint Laurent making fun of the nineteen-forties – or the audience? Or was the whole collection one big parody of fashion?
...Angelo Tarlazzi showed his nineteen‐forties collection in January...before Saint Laurent...
Yves Saint Laurent's...World War II...look...in football shoulders and tight dresses...
Yves Saint Laurent['s]...spring collection...recalled the terrible time of collaborationists in France, bombings in London and wartime austerity in the United States....The forties trend is...inescapable in the Saint Laurent clothes. His shoulders may not be the widest in Paris, but they seemed so.
...Forties...shoulders...turn up [at]...Karl Lagerfeld of Chloe...
...Marc Bohan, the Dior designer, was...showing...the...look of the nineteen-forties...[M]any of the styles have the broad football shoulders that are an earmark of the nineteen‐forties.
If he doesn't bring back wide shoulders, toppers and the hip‐length vests that were called jerkins, he at least may spur the return of the big bands and the Lindy Hop.
...Forties...shoulders...turn up [at]...Jean-Louis Scherrer...
...Guy Laroche is concerned with the nineteen‐forties...[H]e made a big fuss over...broad-shouldered suits, bolero jackets, fluid crepe dresses with crepe capes á la Adrian and lots of other standards of that era.
The part of the nineteen-forties look that Michel Goma has taken to his heart at Patou is the wider shoulder. On the sheerer styles, you can even see the pads.
[In 1971, designer Michele Aujard] put huge shoulder pads in her clothes...
Thierry Mugler showed his first collection in Paris, which concentrated on an angular, wide-shouldered cut reminiscent of the forties.
...Yves Saint Laurent...hard-edged blazers and fluffy fur jackets...have cropped up all over Seventh Avenue....Shoulders are significantly broadened, some of them showing a suspicion of padding.
For fall, Betsey [Johnson] is intrigued with...shoulder pads...
Jean-Louis Scherrer...clothes have a late forties look with squared shoulders...
...Scott Barrie likes...squared-shoulder nineteen-forties suits with plunging necklines worn over no bra and no blouse. It wasn't that way in the forties.
His pitch was the nineteen forties...suits with padded shoulders...and square‐shouldered box coats to go over them.
Jean Louis Scherrer...shoulders were squared...
Daniel Hechter is popular with women in their twenties and thirties. Guess what he's up to? Padded shoulders on boxy jackets and pleated skirts. It's the kind of thing Yves Saint Laurent was hooted at for showing a couple of years ago.
[L]ast season, Scherrer was immersed in the nineteen‐thirties look. Now he's moved on to the forties. Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and all that. Squared shoulders. Padded turbans. Extravagantly beaded evening dresses. Again, glamour gowns for private clients. No guide to the future.
At Nino Cerruti,...[s]quared padded shoulders appeared on everything, the women's styles too.
...[T]he clothes never sold. 'Women just didn't like it,' [Michele Aujard] said.
...[C]ritics...attacked [Yves Saint Laurent's] World War II floozy look...When his mannequins paraded like 1940s streetwalkers..., one critic cried 'hideous' and a...news magazine renamed him 'Yves St. Debacle.'.
In 1970, the women's movement began to take dress down an increasingly informal path. T-shirts, blue jeans, cutoffs, hiking boots, hair flowing freely...Women disposed of bras and freed their breasts under T-shirts or blue work shirts....Relaxed informality settled into the mainstream.
After a brief flurry of interest in shorts for day and evening wear in the spring of 1971 on both sides of the Atlantic, women everywhere settled contentedly into trousers for practically all occasions....Blue jeans became even further entrenched as the uniform of the young and experimentation was limited to different toppings for pants.
With a generation of office workers and executives going to work in T-shirts and blue jeans, formality in fashion was becoming a thing of the past....[I]t is possible for a woman to go anywhere, including black‐tie dinners, in a shirt and pants....Simplicity is the rule, and there's no need for a woman to clutter her closets with a lot of clothes...It is part of the simplification of life that comes under the heading of modernity.
[T]he 1970's will be marked by clothes divided into many easy pieces that can be added to or subtracted from, according to the weather, personal preferences and the feeling of the moment....The style of the 1970's is low on artifice, high on a natural look. Casual is the operative word.
Yves Saint Laurent...suits...are severely tailored...No softening agents at all, unless you want to count the chiffon blouses and the high heel shoes....The best woman's style was a glen plaid pants suit with...sharp shoulders.
...[T]hey...joyously applauded a plain gray flannel coat with broad shoulders that wrapped over a pin‐striped tailored suit and a very full smock coat in gray flannel....They love him when he is making mannish tailored suits with padded shoulders...
[Christian Dior]...sports clothes favor knitted tunics and stove-pipe pants, [the] mannish suits have padded shoulders, and harem pants are a leitmotif for evening.
...[T]he first three years of the 1970's...changed fashion and changed the way women wanted to look....'Suddenly more than half the American women were going to work. Their wardrobe requirements changed. They started looking for more classic styles to work in, to go to the office in. And,' [shoulder pad manufacturer Harold Lopato] says, 'more tailored clothes...always signal a more pronounced shoulder'.
Suits tailored with Savile Row precision...gave a sharp, businesslike look to the liberated woman.
...Wall Street women are...wearing the so-called success suit (tailored jacket and skirt...)...
[Woman's Dress for Success Book author John] Molloy...reports enthusiastically on a 'pledge' he says was drafted by women in one corporation: 'I pledge to wear highly tailored, dark‐colored, traditionally designed, skirted suits whenever possible to the office'...
In women's fashion, 1978 was a year of great change. It began with women submerged under layers of soft shapeless clothing...But the year ended with the same women shedding layers to emerge with a revamped fashion silhouette reminiscent of the 1940s, a look characterized by broad, even padded shoulders, tight waistlines, and shorter, straighter skirts....[D]esigners in Milan, Paris, and New York showed fall ready-to-wear collections that almost simultaneously reached the same conclusion....broad-shouldered fashions, the pared-down look of fewer layers, and the neater waist...huge shoulders, puffed sleeves to emphasize width further...[T]he fashion message was clear: Broad shoulders were in.
Koko Hashim, vice president of Neiman‐Marcus [says]...'There has been an enormous change in the silhouette, a broadening of the shoulders and narrowing of the hips — what we call the triangle... — that requires a reeducation of the consumer'.
What thousands of fashion followers are muttering as they crisscross [Paris] to see the new fashions for fall and winter...is 'shoulders, shoulders, shoulders'.
These [1977 presentations of spring 1978] collections will give buyers and manufacturers the assurance to keep making these clothes and making them bigger. And often more broad-shouldered.
Yves Saint Laurent — the most influential fashion designer in the world — is being credited with starting this fall's dramatic shift of silhouette....What Saint Laurent sprang on the fashion world last January when he introduced man‐tailored suit jackets with shoulders squared out with padding...has now become staple fashion in Italy, France and America. As if by magic, wider-shouldered and leaner‐lined clothes have shown up everywhere at every price level. Fashion has taken a new turn.
Yves Saint Laurent's man‐tailored suit, introduced in January 1978, put emphasis on bigger, built-out shoulders. American designers simultaneously backed the built‐up look and started adding shoulder apparatus of their own.
It started on the first day of the spring and summer couture collections, when Jean‐Louis Scherrer sent out his mannequins in...mannish tailored suits.
... Jean-Louis Scherrer...has taken ...squared shoulders, short jackets,...
...[T]he shoulders of the jackets seem particularly exaggerated...
'YSL's...mannequin...got ovations every time she sauntered out on the runway in another version of the spencer jacket'.
...[T]he real credit for the whole shoulder-pad revival belongs to New Yorker Norma Kamali...
Saint Laurent...is broadening the shoulders and narrowing the skirts...
...[Karl Lagerfeld's] current fall collection is one of the most outrageous in its thrust of broad padded shoulders and aggressive sexiness.
He explains clearly why he chooses this silhouette: 'Big shoulders give a woman a sense of grandeur and height and presence'.
Claude Montana's belted and wide‐sleeved coat in the status 'fabric'- leather- has the broadest shoulders in Paris.
...[A] wide-shouldered coat by Pierre Cardin, being cinched tight...by the designer himself, to emphasize that shapelessness had become quite passé.
...[Viewers] stared in amazement at the oversized shoulders on Cardin's new creations. 'These styles are Superman styles,' Cardin said of the big, wide shoulders...
...[I]f [French designers] have their way,...women will be wearing big, big, big padded shoulders...[T]he overriding trend from Paris was Retro...On the side of Retro are designers like...Jean-Claude de Luca...
Paris padding was provided by the gargantuan-shouldered topcoats of Claude Montana, Jean Claude de Luca, and Thierry Mugler.
...[M]any Paris designers who came to prominence in the...Seventies established a style that assaulted the eye with aggressively padded shoulders and hard-edged, grand-scale proportions...Claude Montana, Anne-Marie Beretta and Thierry Mugler were the leaders of this movement.
At Andrevie...shoulders were almost three feet wide.
Did you love the way your mother looked in the 1940s? If you did, you are in luck - because Yves Saint Laurent, clearly the strongest influence out of Paris, has designed a collection of haute glamour clothes for fall with roots in the Joan Crawford, grand-entrance era.
It is back to the history books if you care to comprehend what the Paris fashion designers are up to...[T]here is a heavy dose of the 1940s in the fall designs, with broad-shouldered suits with fitted bodices, tightly nipped waistlines, and peplums, plus a heavy injection of the early 1900s...
...YSL was on this kick in earlier collections, and now he's changed the silhouette slightly...
Out with the new and in with the old seemed to be the rule in women's fashions for 1978.
Designer after designer showed...the 'retro' look...of the 1940's....From the old days of Hollywood came puffed sleeves,...hats and veils,...rolled or pompadoured hairstyles of the 1940s,...seamed hose,...and even gloves.
The revival of the '40s look has brought with it the retro trappings of red lipstick, long gloves, stockings with seams and tiny hats with veils.
Ready‐to-wear designers are...bringing back...formal accessories such as hats, gloves and serious handbags.
Lagerfeld...has brought back the Merry Widow corselet, whalebone stays and all.
Wide shoulders were an even stronger trend among the French designers than the military look their Italian counterparts favored..., but the invaders look as if they came from outer space, not from over the hill[, with]...helmet-and-goggles...accessories...
On the Flash Gordon side of French ready-to-wear Retro are such designers as Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler, and France Andrevie....At Montana, it took the form of...Italian fascist gone science-fiction fantasy....At Mugler,...a big-shouldered Flash Gordon jacket...
...Claude Montana's Mongolian Martian Look and Thierry Mugler's Star Trekesque gigantic shoulders....
...[Pierre Cardin's] space-age shoulder pads...
Designers everywhere were also being influenced by the World War II era in another way, as clothes took on a military look....[A]ccessories like World War II infantry caps, military ribbons, and bandolier belts abounded.
Along with the giant pads came a kind of mindless toying with military looks...
In American collections there was...a slight broadening of the shoulders, a closer body fit, a natural hip curve tapering to a narrow, slightly shorter skirt.
...Perry Ellis's breezy designs with exaggerated, almost pillow‐padded shoulders...
...[T]he Ellis clothes...look absolutely comfortable and relaxed...Shoulders are padded...Mr. Ellis said he had no compunctions about adding padded coat to padded jacket to padded sweater.
Norma Kamali...has become famous for her parachute dresses, sexy, shirred bathing suits, pegged, draped skirts...and...padded shoulders.
This fall, [Calvin Klein] narrowed [his clothes]...and added a bit of shoulder padding.
Armani's...gift for fall is a long-jacket suit with military shoulders...It accompanies pants, skirts or culottes and it sometimes has epaulets....[S]oftening agents take the curse off the military look....It has broad, padded shoulders...
[Armani's] broad-shouldered, high-neckline jackets and coats are expected to be influential.
In the '40s, the shoulder shape was what Lopato calls 'saddle-shaped,' or sloping in the center. The pads were rigid. Today the shoulder line is straight, says Lopato, and the pads soft and more pliable.
Today, shoulder pads are...often constructed of foam, nonwoven polyester filler, reprocessed cotton felt, ozite and sanforized or nylon thread...The result is a pad which retains its shape and doesn't disintegrate when washed....Average weight is about one ounce.
Nowadays, with fewer skilled cutters and tailors, and different fabrics, it just isn't possible or sensible to repeat an old style.
Bergdorf Goodman's Leonard Hanken...remark[ed], 'We'll have to train a whole new generation of tailors to put in shoulder pads properly. It's a lost art'.
'I'm giving more instruction on how to make and place shoulder pads,' says Elizabeth Simmons, owner of Ardis School of Design.
Saint Laurent['s]...man‐tailored suit jackets with shoulders squared out with padding...looked not only boldly aggressive but startling and totally unexpected...
...[S]houlder pads...big and bulky enough to grace the shoulders of Gargantua.
[Shoulder pad manufacturer Harold] Lopato picks up what looks like a hunk of mattress stuffing...'This,' he pronounces proudly, 'is our three-inch-thick shoulder pad which we worked out with [designer] Bill Kaiserman.'
A hard, constructed, uncompromising silhouette prevailed: padded shoulders, sometimes three feet wide...
[B]ig pagoda shoulders...were [Cardin's] favorite silhouette...last March.
[Montana's] shoulders...turned up at the ends, like pagoda roofs.
...[In] the late '70s...really big shoulders reappeared, this time...broader than ever. Reactions to the doorway-wide affairs generally ranged from 'not for me' to 'never!'
The new broad-shouldered, retro-glamor clothes, military looks and black leather that most customers are seeing for the first time are considered quite shocking....Dorothy Vineburgh, an active volunteer in town, [says], 'No way will I wear those shoulder pads....I want to find something elegant and comfortable.' Richard Krolick, staff director of a congressional committee, wasn't quite so kind. 'It's like World War II!,' he said after one benefit this week. 'They have got to be kidding.'...[C]ustomers aren't loving all the clothes and the shows aren't generating large sales...
...[M]any [buyers] had trouble selling exaggerated shoulders...'I can't see women getting into cars with shoulders so broad,' said Wendall Ward, vice president of Garfinckel's...
'If you had tried to sell big shoulders in a store this winter, you wouldn't touch them for spring,' insists Val Cook, of Saks-Jandel, about the padded-shoulder styles, some of which looked like the model had forgotten to remove the hanger before putting on the dress.
...[I]f you thought padded shoulders would pass with the football season, you are wrong. There are various degrees of padding, but clearly the broad-shouldered look has a wide following.
Wide shoulders are obligatory this season. Some...styles...have a fold or flange effect that draws the eye outward.
[T]he new look took — mostly in the less extreme versions, but with a few surprises. Broader shoulders have been accepted, up to a point.
...[A]s the exaggerated showpieces were translated into saleable styles – with the broadened shoulder tapering to the waist and hemline – women responded positively.
The brisk, capable look of the wide-shouldered silhouette suited the mood of women who wanted to convey just that image: in control and 'together'.
...[S]houlders [are] now [1985] proportioned to sports-page, rather than fashion-page, dimensions...Customers...don't seem to be bothered by the exaggerated shoulders. After all, they make the waist and hips look smaller.
Shoulders were broader. Skirt and pant lines slimmed down....It was not...the only shape around. It was simply the latest.
The only designer who has managed to stay outside of the Retro mainstream is Kenzo...
Kenzo goes his own humorous, playful way, creating amusing, young, almost 'toy' fashions.
Kenzo...intended his showing of 'comic-strip' clothes to poke fun at the pretentiousness of his colleagues and the '[more-]couturier-than-thou' quality of their designs.
Kenzo's oversized tent shapes were belted and bloused.
...Ralph Lauren turned his back on Europe except for the British Isles, the source for his tweed...looks...
[Ralph Lauren's]...new Western clothes were...responsible for an entirely fresh crop of prairie dresses and frontier jackets...
...[T]here were exceptions to the revamped Hollywood look of the 1940's...Ralph Lauren revived the Wild West look...
...Ralph Lauren...has...sweaters beefed up at the shoulders with pads...
Emanuel Ungaro...has sent...advance hints of his styles for next fall....Ungaro uses [a brushed silk shirt] as part of a layering plan that involves a matching vest. a skirt in the same fabric but a blending print, and a couple of sweaters....But Mr. Ungaro hasn't forgotten about dresses. One of the prettiest a loose style in flowery wool challis...
Ungaro['s] jackets had...peplums and...puffy shoulders.
Karl Lagerfeld..., Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro and Hubert de Givenchy...continued with their versions of the rather aggressive broad-shouldered silhouette...
Following the direction women's clothes have taken for the last two or three years, designers expect men to adopt a looser, freer, softer look in fashion...Changes include: Jackets with less inner construction, the built-in features that give a garment its shape. Instead, the clothes are supposed to take on the shape of the wearer and be comfortable, like a sweater. Softer, more loosely woven natural fabrics that allow jacket sleeves to be pushed up and collars turned up to underscore a more casual, even rumpled look. Clothes cut more loosely....American designers...refer to it as 'unconstructed'...
...[T]he Big Look...was pioneered in Paris a year ago by Kenzo Takada...with absurdly large skirts and coats....[T]he look features long skirts, dropped shoulders, dolman sleeves and large armholes, blouson jackets, blowing capes, and loose dresses–all laid on with layers of fabric.
Kenzo anticipated a major change this winter by creating a full, circular skirt, easily caught by the wind...The replacement of the short, kicky skirt by the longer, fuller style was the most important change in the silhouette...The new coat and cape shapes were also looser, fuller and longer – the hemline was anywhere from 3 inches below the knee to the ankle. This voluminous, unconstructed style was christened the 'Big Look'.
[Armani's] career has been punctuated by a series of radical gestures, beginning with the unconstructed blazer of the mid-1970's - his epochal creation....The blazer, a calculatedly rumpled affair, featured sloping shoulders, narrow lapels, baggy pockets and an attenuated line. More importantly, it was endowed with a mobility previously unknown in men's suit jackets, except on Savile Row. It had the kind of comfort found only in sports clothing, which he achieved in part by stripping out much of its cumbersome lining and padding.
Even men who shrug at fashion will probably find themselves in jackets with padded shoulders this fall. Broad shoulders are back...Calvin Klein['s]...shoulders are broad, not extreme, but there is definite padding....Pierre Cardin refers to his new silhouette as 'an upside-down triangle',...designing clothes with broader shoulders...Yves Saint Laurent...is building [shoulders] up again....Bill Kaiserman advocates...'strong but not extreme' shoulders....Lee Wright designs...clothing...inspired by the Italian V-silhouette...
A model poses in Pierre Cardin's double-breasted suit with pagoda shoulders during the French men's wear designer fashion show in New York on Oct. 8, 1979.
Armani's 1979 jackets are wide at the shoulder with a narrowing at the waist and low button closing.
At the end of the 1970's, Armani altered his style dramatically. Taking his design cues from Hollywood costumes of the 1930's and 40's, he widened the lapels of his suits and extended and padded the shoulders.
Shoulders tend to be padded now or given greater width through puffs at the top of the sleeves...And the peplum jacket is reappearing...It's part of fashion's retro mood that...echoes...the 1940's.
The shape that Paris couturiers seem to have agreed upon for fall is the tightly fitted jacket with a small peplum...[w]ith puffed-top, leg-of-mutton sleeves
...Karl Lagerfeld pronounces, 'Shoulders are the roof of a house'.
(see previous McEvoy citations)
The new broad-shouldered, retro-glamor clothes, military looks and black leather that most customers are seeing for the first time are considered quite shocking....Dorothy Vineburgh, an active volunteer in town, [says], 'No way will I wear those shoulder pads....I want to find something elegant and comfortable.' Richard Krolick, staff director of a congressional committee, wasn't quite so kind. 'It's like World War II,' he said after one benefit this week. 'They have got to be kidding.'...[C]ustomers aren't loving all the clothes and the shows aren't generating large sales...
...[M]any [buyers] had trouble selling exaggerated shoulders...'I can't see women getting into cars with shoulders so broad,' said Wendall Ward, vice president of Garfinckel's...At one point during the five-day marathon of fall ready-to-wear shows, Robert Sakowitz, president of Sakowitz (Houston), asked Val Cook of Saks-Jandel, 'Do you know a good book store in Paris?...I want to buy a stack of Bibles,' he explained. 'I think we will all need to do a lot of praying to sell these clothes'.
...[In] the late '70s...really big shoulders reappeared, this time...broader than ever. Reactions to the doorway-wide affairs generally ranged from 'not for me' to 'never!'
...[S]houlders [are] now [1985] proportioned to sports-page, rather than fashion-page, dimensions...Customers...don't seem to be bothered by the exaggerated shoulders. After all, they make the waist and hips look smaller.
...[Margaret Thatcher] gave readers the benefit of her fashion advice...: 'I have bought about two suits a year,' she said. '...In the last two years [1983-85], the shoulders have been a little wider, the top of the sleeves a little more important. That's the only genuflection I make to fashion'.
...Wall Street women are...wearing the so-called success suit (tailored jacket and skirt...)...
[Women's Dress for Success Book author John] Molloy...reports enthusiastically on a 'pledge' he says was drafted by women in one corporation: 'I pledge to wear highly tailored, dark‐colored, traditionally designed, skirted suits whenever possible to the office'...
Soap operas were a new fashion influence. Just as the cinema-goers of the thirties and forties had mimicked the wardrobes of Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, so Joan Collins/Alexis and Linda Gray/Sue-Ellen became a source of inspiration. The soap stars wore the clothes of Saint Laurent, Ferre, Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein....[T]he viewers' definition of glamour was to be dressed up at all times...
...[Dynasty star] Joan Collins sat in the front row of the Valentino show, furiously scribbling notes. No wonder. There were enough skinny, sexy, rich, even tarty clothes on the runway for Collins, her chums on Dynasty and lots of Dynasty aficionados as well.
Nolan Miller, the man responsible for designing the 'Dynasty' look,...his stars are pad-dependent. They'd never give them up, according to Miller....Miller believes in the survival of the shoulder pad
...[C]lothing consultants...are...counseling businesswomen on how to 'dress for power'.
An absence of uniformity marked the 1985 collections....Shoulders tended to be wide and padded, but that was the only unifying element.
...[S]houlder pads have become a way of life to the fashion-conscious, invading not only the innards of coats and jackets, but sweaters and blouses as well....[T]hey`re showing up in the most unexpected places, including camisoles, teddies and even slips, bodysuits, pajamas, robes, sleepshirts, fashions for lounging and fashions for exercising.
Big sweaters with padded shoulders prevailed...
...[I]f you add a padded coat to a padded jacket over a padded blouse, the effect can be grotesque. A lot of grotesque effects were seen on the runways...
[Perry] Ellis said he had no compunctions about adding padded coat to padded jacket to padded sweater.
Shoulder pads are on Velcro and can be removed for easy washing.
Norma Kamali...designed the pads so that they could be easily removed or returned to their proper place via slim strips of Velcro,
...[S]houlder pads deformed...in the dryer...
...the sandpaper sensation of Velcro against skin...
...[S]houlder pads...floated like loose slip straps on our shoulders...
...[P]ads shot up near our ears when straddled by a purse strap...
Norma Kamali...and Perry Ellis introduced the short rah-rah skirt...
Norma Kamali launched her 'sweats' collection: rah-rah skirts, leggings and jogging suits cut in grey and brightly coloured cotton sweatshirting. The tops often had huge, American-footballer shoulder pads. These low-priced co-ordinates were copied worldwide.
...Kamali slipped oversized shoulder pads into vastly oversized sweatshirts in a collection of sportswear that took off overnight and found women, girls and even kids across the country happily looking like female footballers.
Norma Kamali...in the early '80s took shoulders where they'd never gone before – imagine sweat shirts with sofa cushions in them.
Since then, shoulder pads have become a way of life to the fashion-conscious,...
...Ungaro was continuing to drape dresses and cut suits, giving his designs an international influence greater than any other Paris couturier.
[M]any people know Ungaro because it was prominent in the '80s and '90s. If you were a snooty boutique owner in Dallas or New York and you couldn't sell an Ungaro dress with the drapery pouring over the breasts and thighs like butter on a hot ear of corn, you had no business being in retail.
Emanuel Ungaro, who started the bodice-shirring trend two years ago, continues to refine this look that's now being copied all over the world. As anyone who's ever worn one of these drape-front dresses can tell you, the shirring allows freedom of movement in even the narrowest of dresses.
As for Emanuel Ungaro, nothing is quite so seductive as a skinny sheath tucked under a big-shouldered jacket or coat. 'It is this contrast of wide on narrow that I love,' he says.
...[J]ackets tend to have large rippling lapels as well as very broad shoulders and peplums over the hips.
Emanuel Ungaro's updated, sexy Edwardian clothes...
Mae West visited Paris in 1936...Schiaparelli...was to dress her...The arrival of the...film star promoted a tidal wave of Nineties gaiety and...fashions....Edwardian costume balls and styles became all the rage.
Miss Karan says,...'Somewhere in the back of my mind is the figure I always start with - wide shoulders and a shaped body, with round hips'...
Donna Karan drew her inspiration from the imperious screen goddesses of Hollywood in the Forties,...reinterpreting this spirit for...today.
Most of YSL's jackets have big shoulders (though he insists that they are smaller than a season ago)...
...[S]houlders...are padded, but usually not as exaggeratedly as they have been in the recent past.
Last year's exaggerated football shoulders are gone from just about every collection, and designers have used shaped sleeves to achieve a far more attractive look of width at the top.
'The tough shoulders already look a little demodé,' says French designer Karl Lagerfeld.
Big puffed-out sleeves have been deflated, football-player shoulders have been tamed...
Big shoulders continue, though scaled down from their earliest incarnation...
'I wanted to take the padding out of the shoulder, but I felt it needed something at the top to replace it,' [Perry Ellis] explained. '[Capelet collars] were the answer'.
...Saint Laurent...confirmed huge shoulders, puffed sleeves to emphasize width further...
...[E]very...designer is content to achieve breadth across the top with such devices as leg o'mutton sleeves.
Perry Ellis...has stashed away his old signature – padded shoulders...[H]e now has...width coming only from the rounded shape of the sleeve...
[At Ungaro, a] triangular fold just below the shoulder adds breadth but not bulk to the top of the body.
...Ungaro...leather suits...had soft folds at the shoulders.
Wide shoulders are obligatory this season. Some of the styles shown here have a fold or flange effect that draws the eye outward.
Pierre Cardin...dresses...had cap-like extensions over the shoulders....[T]here are stiff flanges and revers on suits...and wings on the shoulders that seem as if they were about to levitate.
Some of [Perry Ellis's] familiar heathery wool sweaters sport stand-up ruffles at the shoulder.
Ruffled trims ran...across shoulders and down sleeves like the dorsal fin of some prehistoric animal.
...[S]houlders, as in seasons immediately past, have been padded slightly, or a bit more so, but rarely with exaggeration.
Shoulders remain wide but less angular.
...[T]he talk is of wide shoulders...Yves Saint Laurent is...working with big shoulders...Valentino...tried to cut down on shoulder padding. Unfortunately, he says, 'Everything looks better with it'.
...[F]ashion turned to a new gentleness in the spring of 1985. This was achieved mainly through rounded instead of square padding at the shoulders...
The mammoth shoulder pads shown a year ago [1978] are one of the disasters. Only Claude Montana has repeated them.
Claude Montana...shoulders extended half a foot on each side by padding and huge shelflike sleeves...
As for Claude Montana, who is to big shoulders what Alexander Graham Bell is to the telephone, fashion is simple: 'Shoulders forever,' he says.
...[B]road, often immense shoulders tapered past slim hips...The sole exception...remained the Japanese.
As in other clothes, the shoulders of the chemise are padded...
Day chemises: An architectural silhouette...with broad shoulders, narrowing toward the hem.
...Hubert de Givenchy...returned to the...chemise shapes promulgated by Balenciaga in 1957....Current versions have wider shoulders and shorter skirts than those of Balenciaga, but still offer a reprise on an earlier style.
Thierry Mugler reminded his audience of just what many of them looked like in the 1960's in their minidresses, wildly colored prints, beads and link belts of plastic disks. Remember those?
Thierry Mugler...is now into the psychedelic 1960's. Miniskirts and maxicoats, bell-bottom trousers, bubble-shaped dresses and Op Art jumpsuits, Afro wigs and short, straight Vidal Sassoon haircuts...
...Thierry Mugler opts for a less dramatic, sloping shoulder. 'But not narrow,' he says.
Many observers claim that Sprouse's sleeveless mini shift dresses, with their flared tent shapes, are cookie-cutter copies of those of Courreges in the 1960's. Yet Sprouse's broad-shouldered, beautifully man-tailored jackets and coats...are selling in the stores.
To balance the leggy look, shoulders were noticeably widened and heightened with padding.
...the new Long and Strong look - long skirts, shawls, wrap coats and lots of layers.
...French styles...are longer, fuller and more layered once again.
The big news is the appearance of the long skirt...There are voluminous shapes...[M]any of the designers like the look of lightweight layers...
The clothes have the relaxed, natural look of [Perry] Ellis's first collection in the 1970's. Trousers are important. Colors are muted. Skirts are long and legs are clad in dark, thick stockings above low-heel shoes. Tops tend to be belted at the hips, and shoulders are broad.
Vivienne Westwood surprised her audience with...1860s bell-shaped, hoop-skirted dresses, with their layered panels now cut down to mini length.
In 1985, Westwood first showed her hooped mini-crini in Paris...[T]he idea caught on in the tonier fashion houses. The shape was refined and repackaged – by Christian Lacroix of the House of Patou...'I was trying to find a way to kill this big shoulder'...
...[S]he says,...'The crinoline thing seemed to me to be the perfect thing to bring to an end...this shape of the inverted triangle, broad at the shoulders and tapered to the hem'.
Christian Lacroix...continues the poufs, puffballs and petticoats that first brought him international attention. New this season are...the simple shawls and fichus of Provence...
Lacroix's imaginative clothes[,]...with shawllike fichu bodices[,]...differed greatly from the tough chic of the broad-shouldered, sleek skirt era that they replaced.
...[A]t Karl Lagerfeld, shoulder pads were removed from the shoulders and moved down to the hips...
By moving shoulder pads to the top of the hip, Lagerfeld suggests the first major structural change in fashion for quite some time...
...Lagerfeld...says:...'There will be...tiny shoulders....You cannot hide behind the excesses of...huge shoulders'.
'It is wonderful to sell slim arms and natural shoulders again,' said Lagerfeld...
Shoulder pads have collapsed in many of the collections, though Yves Saint Laurent makes it all right with the fashion world to keep on wearing them...
Saint Laurent repeated his successful tunics, but with less padded and more fitted shoulders. In his suits the shoulders appear slimmer as well.
...Mugler broke away from his heroic silhouette to a softer proportioned one....moving away from his heavily padded goddesses...in soft, delicate dresses and transparent gowns...with demure puffed sleeves.
Montana seems to have severely tempered his use of shoulder pads, which has been somewhat of a signature for him.
Claude Montana...has lost none of his fierce originality in leaping from his aggressively padded shoulder silhouettes of the past ten years to an unpadded, natural shoulder.
Adeline André designed sloping shoulders, the shape of the new futurists.
Marc Audibet...moved away from the prevailing padded-shoulder...
Marc Audibet...advocates a small, natural shoulder or a dropped, sloping shoulder...that reduces fashion from its current screaming wallop of...heroic padded shoulders to a...whisper
Romeo Gigli represents the avant-garde of Milan.
The single most commanding collection...was Romeo Gigli's...
[Gigli's] shape is always narrow through the shoulder...
Grace Coddington of British Vogue admired his work: 'Gigli has dispensed with shoulder pads and still made the proportions work'.
Signs of the imminent demise of bulky shoulder padding were seen...
Shoulder pads have collapsed in many of the collections...
...[T]he strong-shouldered, inverted-pyramid silhouette that had dominated mainstream fashion since the...1970s – a shape defined by jackets with serious shoulder pads over narrow skirts or trousers – finally tipped over. By late 1989 shoulders had narrowed, shoulder pads had all but disappeared, and hems were flared out.
OUT: Shoulder pads. IN: Shoulders.
It's claimed they give women a forceful physical presence and a V-shape...They mask bad posture, it's believed, and sloping, inadequate shoulders.
'Shoulder pads...,' [Norma Kamali] said, '[a]re like wearing a padded bra. They give you a certain attitude and strength. They compensate for...physical shortcomings.'...
They make even cheap dresses hang right....'Fabrics are less expensive fabrics now, so they need more support. And we keep a hanger from stretching out a garment in the store,' [shoulder pad manufacturer Harold Lopato] says.
Majestic Shapes, a shoulder pad manufacturing company in the South Bronx, makes 100,000 pairs a day, five days a week, according to its president, Harold Lopato.
'A few years ago, the network [hosting the TV show Dynasty] said no more shoulder pads,' [Dynasty costume designer Nolan Miller] says. 'Both Linda [Evans] and Joan [Collins] almost mutinied'.
The padded shoulders, ventless back and slight suppression in the torso that are so prevalent in Italian and French tailoring...may have seemed a bit avant-garde...a few years ago, but no longer.
Alexander Julian['s]...jacket...shape has changed,...moving toward a broad-shouldered silhouette with wide lapels.
...[J]ackets with exaggerated shoulders that taper to narrow hips, and side vents placed so that hands can slip into pants pockets without disturbing the line. That is the new shape in men's clothes [Pierre Cardin] showed...
Fenzi Knitwear:...The shoulder line continues its geometry, which is more pronounced.
The Armani suit owes much of its shape and swagger to the 1940's, with extremely broad and soft shoulders, very wide lapels and a gorge (that embattled little notch between lapel and collar) that is higher.
...[S]emiconstructed jackets have slightly padded shoulders that slump nearly off the shoulders.
The exercise fad of the 1970's has become a fact of life in the 1980's.
The fitness craze...grew from the weekly exercise class to body-building and triathlon regimens...
[Click modeling agency head Frances] Grill uses athletes with shoulders that barely fit into the sports coats they are supposed to be peddling...[like model] Sasha Mitchell,...[in] black pants and shoes and shoulders swollen by 90 minutes a day of lifting weights...
Perry Ellis gave the fashion crowd a jolt with an uncharacteristically close-fitting men's and women's collection shown with sizzle by such models as athletic Jeff Aquilon, lithe Lise Ryall, Elle Macpherson, who is so fit she seemed to leap out of everything she wore...
...[O]bserves Ralph Lauren,...'...Men's suits have gotten more shaped because they're working out'....Natural-shoulder suits are now more suppressed in the waist and broader in the shoulders, chest and back.
Special emphasis on a looser and more broad-chested style. Softer, wider and slightly padded shoulders create the season's fashion image.
Guido Petruzzi, president of Giorgio Armani Fashion Corporation, the designer's American manufacturer, says that Mani's V-shaped suit represents 'an extreme,' but he thinks American consumers are coming to accept it. 'All that work and energy,' Petruzzi remarks. 'A suit without shape doesn't show it off'.
'American men have their own shoulders and don't need any padding,' [Alexander Julian] says.
The two-button suit is 'the most important,' says Ralph Lauren, because, by showing more of the chest, 'it's more flattering to the body'.
This viewer [fashion writer Bill Cunningham] was fascinated by an almost puritanical simplicity that was sweeping into many collections...as a reaction against the excessive riches and embarrassing prices...of the Eighties.
You can thank costume designer Brenda Cooper...for the spectacle of Nanny Fine's wardrobe....[S]tandouts were by Moschino or Dolce & Gabbana...
A Shoulder Pad as a Money Hider: Jenna Mitchell of Venice, Calif., has designed a...Velcro-fastened shoulder pad with a...secret...pocket that snaps shut....Ms. Mitchell received patent 5,189,738.