English Version | Shoulders to lean on

Fifty-two centimeters. That's the size of the shoulders (for a long time we called them “shoulder pads”, but it seems that this designation is now completely outdated) that Anthony Vaccarello put on most of the coats he designed for Saint Laurent's fall/winter 2023 collection. Fifty-two centimeters (the width is measured from one side of the seam to the other), ten centimeters more than is usual in the maison's garments of this type - in practical terms, the length of a newborn baby. Vanessa Friedman, fashion critic for The New York Times, referred to them as the perfect piece for Incredible Hulkette: “They were so expansive, it was hard to see around them to the other side of the catwalk.” Was Friedman criticizing Vaccarello's achievement? Not at all. The return of “power shoulders”, which has tried to reassert itself as a trend again and again since the beginning of the millennium, has never been felt as intensely as it is now - and, before that, in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher came to power (for some reason she was called the “Iron Lady”), a time when feminist icons had names like Grace Jones, Joan Collins and Diana of Wales.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the intervention of Elsa Schiaparelli, who in 1931 introduced oversized shoulders to her collections in order to reduce the waist through a trick of perspective rather than the unbearable pain caused by corsets. The following year, Joan Crawford, an actress and goddess in her own right, wore "shoulder pads " (permission to use the expression here, we're in the golden age of Hollywood...) in the film Letty Lynton. The look made such an impact that "Macy's sold 500,000 copies of the frock” and big shoulders became synonymous with both Crawford (who made them an extra accessory for her characters) and “the representation of strong women onscreen”, recalls Vanessa Friedman. Around this time, power shoulders became a kind of uniform for all ladies entering the job market. In the midst of the Second World War, they were “a way of asserting a certain kind of authority and power that had traditionally been associated with masculine tailoring.” Decades later, when the fighting had shifted and offices were full of “working girls” (hello Melanie Griffith, hello Tess McGill, if you don't know these references please turn to page 80) trying to rise through the professional ranks, the basic closet of a “corporate woman” was based on an extra-large blazer with exaggerated shoulders, the perfect armor to make it in a man's world.

That's how it's been so far. A protection (rescue?) of the body, seen as something fragile, innocent, vulnerable. But in 2023, after several conflicts that have changed the way we see and think about the world - from the pandemic to the conflict in Ukraine, from the vertiginous rise in inflation to the frightening escalation of political extremism, among many other dilemmas - the female body is once again the center of attention, only for the best of reasons. The shoulders now serve to exalt control over that same body, which for so many decades we have tried to protect (rescue?). It's impossible to walk into a room wearing a jacket whose shoulders measure 56 centimeters (Stella McCartney) or 48 centimeters (Alberta Ferretti) and go unnoticed. That's precisely the intention. As McCartney confirmed to The New York Times, the aim is to draw attention to the body. Rick Owens, Laquan Smith, Thom Browne, Max Mara, Proenza Schouler, Balenciaga, Ferragamo, almost no one wanted to be left out of this trend, which is already part of the annals of fashion - and which is, if you like, the antithesis of the “girl next door” look or the “well-behaved girl” mood. Big, exaggerated shoulders that go on for miles are not for girls. Look at Lady Gaga, ultra-powerful, in an irreproachably well-cut Marc Jacobs suit at the Woman In Hollywood event in 2018. Or Zendaya in a Sportmax power suit at the 2022 Oscars. Go big or go home.

*Originally translated from The Coming Back Issue, published September 2023. Full credits and stories in the print issue.