Are your shoulder pads big enough?
Make like Dynasty — power padding is in this season, says Harriet Walker
They were once the preserve of boardrooms and women attempting to be accepted or respected therein. An instant and, with retrospect, comically literal signifier of ambition, confidence and loadsamoney, as popularised by Gordon Gekko, Krystle Carrington and Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. How strange then, in a hard-up age characterised by working from home, non-hierarchical Gen Z-friendly office culture and an obsession with other people’s feelings, that fashion’s pushiest and most neoliberal trend looks set for a revival.
It isn’t just your bank account feeling the effects of inflation. Soon your silhouette will too: hold onto your green juice and stretchy waistband, because the amped-up power shoulder is back. Good luck being inclusive in the workplace when you literally can’t fit through the door.
