Office-ready attire was top of mind for fall as designers put an emphasis on sharp suiting and sweeping maxi coats to outfit people returning to in-person work.  

And whether the job is corporate or creative, customers may have a broad range to select from to get it done. A typical theme? The shoulders might be equally as broad.  

Most closely related to power-dressing of the ’80s when women made strides within the workforce, larger-than-life shoulders are sometimes used as a solution to send a message of confidence by physically taking over space.  

Clothes that get noticed were a key takeaway from Raul Lopez’s Luar collection titled “Calle pero elegante,” or “street but elegant” inspired just as much by the Wall Street types he saw strutting down Fifth Avenue because the “Brooklyn “gangstresses,” or women who commanded respect through style and attitude, that he observed while growing up in Latest York,” wrote WWD’s Misty White Sidell in her review. 

“As Lopez expands his industrial footprint, he placed a recent concentrate on outerwear,” she continued, with “boulder shoulders…applied to floor-grazing peacoats, blazers and a sleek run of elongated ski jackets.”

Where Lopez played with construction with droops and drapes, Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vacarrello stuck to precision with a set of fifty looks, almost each one in every of which featured a big-shouldered jacket, normally worn with a pencil skirt.

As international editor Miles Socha explained, “Vaccarello is an especially meticulous designer… so what this show lacked in variety he made up for with finesse — the way in which those ramrod shoulders held firm, while the remaining of the jacket swayed.” 

The designer sought “to mix tailoring and flou in each of those linebacker blazers,” he told Socha backstage, where “YSL chief executive officer Francesca Bellettini was wearing one in every of Vaccarello’s sharp-shouldered smokings, and she or he looked every inch the boss,” he reported.

Meanwhile, Stella McCartney zoomed in on tailoring with an equestrian spin, observed executive West coast editor, Booth Moore. “Showing British check and pinstripe boyfriend blazers with the season’s exaggerrated shoulders and looser trousers,” the designer counterbalanced a domineering silhouette with bare midriffs.  

The trend prolonged to after-hours dressing as well, with domineering-shoulder gowns worthy of Joan Collins’ Alexis character from “Dynasty” seen at Erdem, Thom Browne and Balenciaga, where Demna referenced couture shapes alongside inflatable motorcycle gear as well.