County horror fashion
It took me a while to get past hors de control (that’s
French for out of control) and the image of “editrixes” before I
finally wrapped my brain around the idea of shoulder pads themselves. Is
this (see fashion photo of NEW fashions) something we really want to
revisit?
Okay, I wore pads. I had a closet full of shoulder padded outfits. My favorite was a Saint Laurent gold lame dress I found in a Paris
consignment shop. Coupled with my bleached-blonde mall perm, it made me
look like last call at a cross-dressers bar. But I didn’t care. I am
only five-three and that outfit made me feel BIG.
In
retrospect, I don’t think this shoulder pad fad was a short-person
syndrome thing. We ALL wore the damn things. I don’t remember exactly
why but I think it had something to do with power. Big shoulders are scary looking. This is why cats turn sideways and puff themselves up when they are spooked. This is why professional football players wear polyethelene shells but does not explain that black marker stuff they put under their eyes.
Big shoulders are intimidating. Just ask this woman:
Or
the shoulder-padded Margaret Thatcher, who was so scary she was called
Atilla the Hen and could make a Labour man pee in his pants by just
looking at him.
Elsa
Schiaparelli was scary. She was the first modern designer to stick pads
in dresses and suits way back in 1930. She was Italian, so she was
probably natural ballsy. She created something called “Hard Chic” and
her clothes look pretty menacing even now, like when Madonna was going
through her Thierry Mulger phase. In 1931, Joan Crawford showed up in the movie “Letty Linton” in one of her padded dresses. The rest is history because Joan, as we all know, went on to become the Patron Saint of Pads.
Here is Joan in my favorite feminist movie, “Mildred Pierce.”
Mildred
starts out as a meek waitress (no pads in the uniform) but gets rich
defying all the men in her life and building a chain of restaurants with
good bars. The more money she makes, the bigger her pads grow until by the end of the movie, when she’s sitting under the police lamp in her shoulder-padded mink taking a murder rap for her ingrate daughter, she looks like a mother grizzly. Don’t fuck with me, mister. I’m padded and I’ll use it.
Shoulder
pads stayed popular through the war, but once the women stopped
riveting and the men came home, the women shrank. Out came the pearls
and shirtwaists. It was Mad Men right through Diary of the Mad Housewife.
Fast
forward to the Eighties. My memory is fuzzy but I remember this as a
time when women were breaking out of their padded rooms and into all
sorts of other rooms. Boardrooms, courtrooms, locker rooms. Everything
we bought came with pads, even the lingerie, and if it didn’t we
Velcro-ed it in. We injected our clothes with enough foam to insulate a
subdivision. We were going shoulder-to-shoulder with the boys and thought we needed an edge.
“Nine To Five” kill-the-bastard-boss power pads. “Working Girl” Tess McGill “I’ve got a head for business and a body for sin” power pads. “Dynasty” Alexis "Nobody
takes me to bed and to the cleaners in one night" rich-bitch
pads. "Designing Women" Julia Sugarbaker "Have you lost your
mind?" irony pads.
By
the end of the Eighties, shoulder pads had grown as big as dinner
plates. The clothes got uglier and uglier. We got bulkier and bulkier.
In some misguided attempt to play with the big boys, we ended up looking
like Gene Simmons in a Kiss comeback tour.
The
remants remain. Some women are still wearing their Eighties power
looks. During the presidential campaign, I cringed whenever some hack
journalist berated Hillary Clinton for her pantsuits. And her ardent
supporters -- you remember what they were called? Shoulder-pad
femininists. Ask any athlete: It's hard to take off the pads after
you've spent a lifetime in the arena.
Which
brings me to my favorite shoulder pad popular culture moment. It comes
in the movie "Broadcast News." Holly Hunter is trying to get Albert
Brooks to butch up before he goes on the air. Finally, in frustration,
she rips the shoulder pads out of her dress, stuffs them in his jacket
and barks, "Quit whining!" What a great moment. It's like this tiny but
powerful woman has finally realized she doesn't need to mimic a man and
that her slender shoulders are plenty strong to bear what the future
might hold. I like to think of Holly Hunter's character twenty years
later, living in a villa in Lucca with an almost finished novel in the
drawer and a totally spent young Italian guy in the sheets.
Sorry. That image distracted me.
So
why, twenty years after, are we being told to put the pads back on?
Maybe it’s the scary economy and we are sharpening our elbows to
survive. Maybe the fashion designers are running scared or running out
of ideas. Maybe it’s just plain old nostalgia. I had to go look up that word to be sure it was appropriate here. Nostalgia is from the Greek words for “returning home” and “ache or pain.” So
if the Eighties were a golden time for some, maybe a little padding is
just what the doctor ordered to ease the pain of the present.
But
I think most women are like me. Yeah, things might be bad right now.
But we’ve been through worse. We can cope. No more shoulder pads, thank
you. I think most of us have outgrown them.
****
P.J.
Parrish is the New York Times bestselling author of nine thrillers. Her
latest, THE LITTLE DEATH, will be out next February. It is about sex
and power and rich people doing bad things in Palm Beach circa 1989.
They are all wearing shoulder pads.
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Comments
I'll stick with comfortable, to hell with high fashion. Gack!
If the 80s are coming back, is wet-look hair far behind? I always loved that one because my long hair WAS actually wet most of the time - took too long to use a blow dryer.
I was at the salon yesterday and there are about a million versions of the shag haircut in the magazines. One looked too damn much like Carol Brady for my comfort.
But the 80s, my heyday, was kind of a bust. We Are the World? Come on! Cocaine. Billy Idol. Yuck.
What will they say about the 00's?
Thanks for writing such a great blog.
If you want horrible flashbacks, ladies, look at old "Miami Vice" reruns on TV. The men's clothes could be worn now. The women's will give you nightmares. Worst of all -- I had way too many of those outfits.
Since that time I've taken the lyrics from South Pacific (And she's broad where a broad should be broad.) as my ideal, but added more horizontal additions to the dimensions. I don't need any help from shoulder pads.
Thanks PJ, this was fun.
I am so glad shoulder pads aren't in everything anymore. I am glad they finally removed them from t-shirt type shirts. If you can *see* them through the material, they shouldn't be there! And I hated dealing with them as twisted messes in the wash.
But I have to disagree somewhat.... I like shoulder pads in some things - like fitted, structured outfits. When you have no waist, they help even out your proportions. They just shouldn't be in everything, and not too big.
Ugh. Can a WHAM! reunion be far behind?
Oh and John Ashcroft lost to a dead guy only because Mel Carnahan was still the better Senator 6 feet under. Look at all the wonderful things big John did as Attorney General. Hey there is another reason to bring back the eighties, we still had a Bill of Rights.
Sign me,
Would still vote for Mel
Besides, considering the email that I got from my boss (and his boss) today, I don't need 'em. I am in charge!!! Today, and today only, I am the only person who actually showed up at work. So, for operational excellence, they have made me the top person. LOL!!!
Ironic, considering that usually I dress casual, but today felt like going super nice. Skirt and new blouse with matching jewelry (very rare for me). I have had two guys tell me they think I am beautiful..and neither one is the significant other. :)
But we've all finally gotten used to those icky 70s tight polyester ugly print blouses . . . and we'll all get used to this too. It will take our eyes awhile to adjust, but eventually nothing will feel quite right without a little puffy cotton inserted. Just think of it as aesthetic recycling.
Rent "Under the Tuscan Sun" with Diane Lane. That's where I stole the image from.
I love that cheesy movie...
I did love shoulder pads, though, since my own build required "shoulder falsies", as I used to call them, and I had several different sizes of foam ones that clung to the shoulders underneath clothing. Except when they stopped clinging and fell down in the charming manner described by Elaine. One fell down my back once, which was bizarre to see, I'm sure. When they fell over the boob it was equally amusing, since I'm already fairly well-endowed.
When I taught sewing one of my adult students, who was a sales exec in her job, told me about having a shoulder pad fall on the floor while she was chatting with a couple of male co-workers. One of them pointed to it, and said "What is THAT?" She blithely stooped, picked it up, and shoved it back in place, saying "Oh, that, it's just a shoulder pad. Nothing to be frightened of." She and I got 10 minutes of choking, snorting enjoyment out of her recital of the incident.
And congratulations, Debby!!