Fun Fad Facts: Cold Shoulder

Welcome back to yet another week of Fun Fad Facts; my name is Vieve and I will be your host for the night! This week we will dive deep into the off-the-shoulder trend that has become more and more pervasive on our dear campus. From preppy off-the-shoulder sweaters to collar cut T-shirts, shoulders are out and about all over Reed. Instead of focusing on just the origin of the off-the-shoulder bodice, I want to think more about political and social patterns that have coexisted with the regular repopularization of this trend.

Most of the articles I have found about off the shoulder tend to view the Victorian era nobility as the breakthrough moment. From the early to mid 19th century it was very common for the ladies of the ton (for all you Bridgerton watchers) to don an extravagant dress with a neckline that fell across the shoulders and emphasized a certain feminine sensibility. I would like to now imagine the practicality of this style, an extremely fitted and corseted bodice, already uncomfortable and restrictive, which now had an off-the-shoulder neckline giving absolutely no stretch. Imagine trying to grab a vase from a tall shelf; you simply would not be able to. The off-the-shoulder gown took the restrictive nature of the Victorian noblewoman's garb even further by cutting their range of motion nearly in half. This meant that the style was really only available to those whose days could be filled with tasks that required their arms at 90 degrees at most, such as reading and embroidery. In other words, the off-the-shoulder style was not accessible to working class women because it was unable to accommodate the mobility their work included. They did not have the option to resign themselves to days full of embroidery in order to embody the newest trend. While the adoption of the off-the-shoulder look was a sign of privilege, it was in some ways created to confine women to inactive homebound lifestyles where they were accessories to their abodes. 

In the 1890s there was a shift in the clothing of middle to upper class Victorian women, who pivoted away from exaggerating dresses below the waist with accessories like hoops or brussels to the opposite. The off-the-shoulder sleeve was traded in for a highly exaggerated, puffy-shouldered, massive sleeve, with the below-the-waist section becoming much more simplistic and lacking in volume. This exaggerated sleeve was a clear solution for middle and upper class women feeling confined by the off-the-shoulder top and coalesced with various feminist movements in the late 19th century to early 20th century, becoming synonymous with the identity of the “new woman.” These “new women” took advantage of new employment opportunities, had a voice in the suffragette movement, and fought for access to higher education, all embodied in this big-ass sleeve. Of course this image of the “new woman” is fraught in its singularity. Just as the off-the-shoulder sleeves were really only an option for economically advantaged women, the puffy sleeve and “new woman” archetype really only described a particular woman: the white, economically stable, and likely well-off woman. Women embracing the puffy shoulder to access more work opportunities only sounds revolutionary if you envision them not working in dangerous factories and getting paid the bare minimum. This is all to say that it is significant that the breakout moment for the off-the-shoulder trend, at least in the West, became symbolic of female repression (white, economically privileged repression, an incongruity in itself), and then the reversal became synonymous with female liberation. In every iteration of fashion trends where off-the-shoulder tops are repopularized, they bring a legacy of feminist contention. In every reinvention, the specificity of the off-the-shoulder style is a commentary on practicality and liberation.

Today’s off-the-shoulder shirts could not be more different than the original formal, constricting bodice that cut off mobility. With the popularization of the grunge movement and the invention of stretch fabric, wearing an off-the-shoulder top is unlikely to be in conflict with comfort and movement. I feel that, while wearing an off-the-shoulder piece is inherently related to its function in the Victorian era, it speaks more so to the return of the 2010s, a decade when the off-the-shoulder was even more popular than it is now. Fashion gets recycled and rebuilt every time it remerges; it builds on past history while realigning its exact purpose. At Reed today, perhaps the off-the-shoulder is more related to the aestheticization of recently vintage styles, or maybe I’m not giving the student body enough credit, and people are wearing off-the-shoulder to bring attention to a history of restriction.