Shoulder pads were synonymous with adulthood in the 80s. This is how we envisioned our future; Standing in a flat with large windows and a martini, perhaps some jobber (lawyer?), With shoulder pads worn. Oh, and a big TV. The shoulder pads, if you cross-referee it with the rest of the image, were more than femininity: it was professionalism, modernity, happiness, and power. In their 2020 reboot, some – Balenciaga – are more indifferent than others – Balmain. A giant moat in zingy spring green is pure 1943, while a sequin cloak is a bit more robotic and dystopian. But for someone of a certain age, they’re doing what you want to wear if a magic trick swaps you body with your mother, a la Strange Friday, even if your actual mother never wore them because she was a Sloane. Was not, nor would he have worn huge earrings.
There was no 80s shoulder pad. In the 30s, they existed purely to make their waist look smaller. This, being much less extreme than wearing a corset or removing a rib, is a beautiful tame look that took a surprising twist in the 40s, when the shoulders merged with the cyan chic and every The silhouette of someone became huge and a little creepy, everyone rolling over each other in a surreal tribute to the tanks.
This historical twist is relevant, by the way, to my week in the shoulder pads. In a jacket, a T-shirt, a structured shirt, by any means, the most eye-catching thing about me was how huge I was. It’s like a beard (note hipsters, I’m right on it): they were invented for men with a weak chin, so when a man with a strong chin grows one, he looks like a desperate charity Used to be. People who already have enough looks on their shoulders as if they are in a fancy dress. I split up with someone once because they said that I was a sturdy back, in one of those annoying relationship moments where Straw that breaks his (powerful) back is a comment that is wholly justified. One avatar I tried was a brown vintage Pietro Luna jacket, in which I looked like a henchman. “I like my power blazer,” someone said in the office and, indeed, I was power dressing if that meant that I could smuggle an Uzi on a tube train. And on the subject of public transport: I took up so much room, it seemed as if I was trying to keep everyone out of my body buffer area, in case they were knighted. I did not like being this person.
I always looked 30% to 100% formal for any occasion. On Monday night, I went to a vegetarian restaurant with a dozen disappointments on the left. It is okay to wear shoulder pads and eat vegetarian food now, of course, because it is fashionable, and therefore vegetarian. In the 80s, you’d be no more united than you would have driven a 4×4 for a march against nuclear war. And the leftists did not pay attention, because people in politics have no clue. (I was once at a Labor Party conference, and someone asked me where my dress was from, and I said, Vionnet. She gave me a look; a clear how-to anyone could say: “You can call this V&A Stole from? “) But the rest of the restaurant because they can’t do all the usual stuff, like saw me go to the toilet to get past.
Behind a table, structured in a shirt so you can have a plate of hot food balanced on each shoulder, I came close to getting dressed appropriately. Maybe it makes me sit upright, or perhaps it’s just intimidating to be shaped like a box or a computer, rather than a hill or a washing pile. Dress for the job you want, they say; But what is the situation that will happen? One where you made a 20-hour decision, did a staccato delivery and never went to Pret, because you’re a machine, and don’t need crayfish machines. I’m guessing here.
Having broad shoulders is, of course, a metaphor for taking responsibility. Can you transmit that feature visually? If so, this is a straightforward way to get employed for a high-pressure job where anyone talks to you. No, wait, someone spoke to me. He said that I sounded like a support singer in a talking head video. I like this better than what my Mr noted that I looked like a hot Sue Ellen, and I said, “How can there be a warm Sue Ellen when Sue Ellen was already hot?” And then, after intense questioning, it was revealed that he would take the “hot” prefixed ances for any resemblance, out of fear of my obsessive closure.
The most devastating comment came, apparently and also quite often, from mixed children, all of them of their own. “Why are you wearing it?” And, later, “No, really, why are you wearing this?” And until Friday, “Why are you still wearing it?” It’s also not a question because it doesn’t wait for or hear the answer, and it conveys so much more — it’s the deep undercurrent that baffles a parent for bringing so much horsepower and shame to the family inventiveness will be devoted. “Why are you like this?” Was a text.
The last iteration I tried was a shoulder-padded T-shirt, a garment that unites the vocal structure with the glee unstructured and makes no sense from any angle, especially in an athleisure bonanza tooth that won’t die. Should I look as though I could lounge? Can a lounge, stick out with one shoulder? Yet perhaps because it was made to confuse, it is the thing that the outside world most readily accepted: Ah, I see my game, was the mistress. You are doing this on purpose. You are not trying to burst a lost decade on your own, or shoving your otherwise subtle business strategy down my throat. You are just a devoted shoulder of fashion.
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