Shrug it on; Brace yourself: The big, broad shoulder is back.

Byline: Sarah Mower

When I stood in Martin Margiela's studio, trepidatiously shrugging on a new pair of shoulders, I didn't anticipate for one second it was about to change everything I want to wear. But that, amazingly, is how it's turned out between me and the new padded shoulder line that has been thrust forward-simultaneously but without prearrangement-by two of the most avant-garde forces in Paris, Nicolas Ghesquiere of Balenciaga and M. Margiela. This was the most outre development of the season by some distance (five-and-a-half inches out there to the edge of each shoulder, to be precise), and a sight calculated to jangle the nerves of everyone with a memory of the eighties. Some, I swear, cringed in their seats but thought they'd better not show it for fear of giving away their age. But now I am ready to declare: I jangled, and I remember the eighties. And here I stand, a full convert, wardrobe reconfigured around the epiphany of that one fantastic sharp-shouldered Margiela jacket. It's all changed-skirt, dress, blouse, bag, even hair-I promise. It started over two days last October at the spring shows. One night, in front of not many people, Margiela sent out one of the most curious-looking proposals on any runway: flesh-colored bodysuits with ledgelike shoulder pads, followed by tailored jackets and capelets with the same built-in pads. The next morning, Ghesquiere showed his highly publicized and much-lauded "robot" collection, in which the most salient feature (aside from the C-3PO leggings) was a double-level shoulder, its upper story's outer facing clad in black patent leather. Strangely, I don't remember people making much of a fuss about it at the time or connecting the two incidents to surmise a trend. The New Shoulder got passed over or, more accurately, put into a category marked "Work this out later." I only came to work it out four months later, when, during the Paris couture shows, I revisited Margiela on a mission to find out whether that shoulder was real or just one of those showtime conceits destined to sink without mention. The eternal Mr. Invisible of fashion, the Creator himself, was of course nowhere to be seen, so it was Patrick Scallon, Margiela's press representative on Earth, who brought out the samples in the all-white sewing room of the converted lycee that is the Maison Martin Margiela atelier. There was one black jacket with red revers, which he pronounced "very Elvira" (a witchy eighties reference I've since heard bubbling up elsewhere), that was too loud for my liking. There was a white version I liked more. By the third all-black try-on (Scallon: "Truly Joan Crawford"), I was interested. He let me take it out for a spin. Back in my hotel room, I started to inspect what it did, shoulder-wise and shape-wise. By some brilliant illusion, the span of the shoulders and the upsweep of the wide revers gave me a waist I don't possess and smaller hips. As luck had it, I'd thrown an old (somewhat atypically sexy) Yohji Yamamoto calf-length pencil skirt into my luggage. Then I remembered that wasn't luck, it was Miuccia Prada who had inspired me with the few slim, below-knee skirts she'd shown in her forties-inflected spring collection. Suddenly, there was a link ...