Women had worn shoulder-padded hard tailoring before the 1980s – look at Joan Crawford starring in Mildred Pierce (1945), whose fur coat is elevated half-way up to her ears. But no designer had proposed, and succeeded in imposing for more than a decade, such a radical reshape of the whole female torso as Claude Montana, who has died aged 76.
Montana’s high shoulders, also extended as far outwards as the pauldrons of armour, were not just hangers for his skilled if melodramatic tailoring (retailers complained his garments could not be railed on actual hangers, as they flumped off), but acted as guardians of the torso.
