Where The Style Came From

Who would have thought a sweatshirt could be sexy? Before the 1980s, no one would have considered this clothing item to be a tool of seduction. Big, baggy, ill-proportioned, all it was good for was keeping body heat in. But then the 1983 film Flashdance showed an eye-popping striptease done under the folds of a cut-up sweatshirt, and everyone changed their tune about this lamentable gym garb. The cut-up sweatshirt, like racerback tanks and legwarmers were what became hot in this era. Sweat was sexy.

Who Gets the Credit

It’s unclear as to who came up with the idea of cutting the neckline off the gray sweatshirt the main character Alex dons in this scene — some say it was Jennifer Beals who took the scissors to the garment because it would not fit over her head; others say costume designer Michael Kaplan was following the trend of dancers he’d seen in ballet studios who cut up their clothes so as to get better fluidity to their movements. Whoever it was, the look took off, and as much as shoulder-pads were inspired at this time by the TV show Dallas, so too was the dancer look inspired by the movie Flashdance. The off-the-shoulder look is still a popular one for fashion designers.