Re-invention of the 80's Shoulder Pad

It's back....! Back in the 80's, shoulder pads were used with almost everything in the wardrobe, from jackets and blazers to evening dresses and casual tops. Some time later high shoulders were successfully forgotten and outdated, though this fall they are the actual trend to serve for a trendy and a powerful woman of today. That trendy item became actual thanks to Christophe Decarnin, the Creative Manager to the French House of Balmain. It was Decarnin who reincarnated such a recognizable element of the '80s when he launched collections for Spring-Summer 2009 with a line of military-styled jackets and dresses with shoulder pads.
The passion for Balmain that the fashion world was seized with was productive to the extent that in the beginning of this year the other designers followed Balmain and presented Fall-Winter'09-10 ensembles styled '80s, from Donna Karan and Louis Vuitton to Julien Macdonald and Jean Paul Gaultier. The trend is believed to origin from the '80s though the true prototype of the style was that of the post-war epoch.
High shoulders apparently specified authority and aggressiveness though at the same time they make the silhouette slimmer. But high shoulders are not that fashionable thing to suit everyone. Shoulder pads can be tremendously risky to the self-esteem and image of those women who wear them wrongly or with the wrong styles. The most recent collection by Christian Dior, the trend that was the pre-image of the style of the coming '80s in the second half of the forties was smoothed by femininity and stylishness of works by the French designer. The image of a powerful woman was recollected some time later, in the year 1975, when flowery prints and loose flying silhouettes of blouses were in the great fame.
Soon after, the founder of the fashionable brand Biba, the designer Barbara Hulanicki, launched fur coats with high shoulders. She was followed by Ossie Clark and Bill Gibb who used shoulder pads to add some distinctness to their romantic chiffon ensembles in the end of seventies. The other «forefather» of high shoulders is the celebrated French couturier Yves Saint Laurent. In 1966 the designer opened his iconic Le Smoking, a manly smoking only for women. Owing to Saint Laurent the pantsuit became far more sexual for women for the accented thin waist matched with high shoulders. Later on, Bianca Jagger contributed to popularization of such pantsuits and when she married to Mick Jager in 1980, she wore a white smoking with shoulder pads, and then she regularly appeared in similar jackets in public.
In the middle of the eighties many women imitated the figure of the character played by Melanie Griffith in «Business woman» movie or actresses from the legendary soap opera «Dynasty». As for men, they were not aside of the fashion and they liked the image created by the legendary Pop King Michael Jackson when he set trend for a military-styled jackets with shoulder pads. At the end of the day, it was Michael Jackson who made high shoulders come back in fashion. His favorite military-styled jackets were the source of inspiration for Christophe Decarnin from Balmain followed by other designers. Today a jacket, and even dresses with high shoulders is an absolute must-have for the winter season. Most recently, one of the largest fashion brands showed the example to cheaper retailers, from Topshop to New Look with collections launching really elegant jackets with high shoulders.

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