One of my favourite movies growing up was Baby Boom. Released in 1987 and starring the peerless Diane Keaton, it told the unlikely story of a career woman, J.C. Wiatt, who inherits a little girl (I know). The film poster shows Keaton—child in one hand, briefcase in the other—wearing a shoulder-padded blazer, a pencil skirt and almond-toed pumps. And it pretty much sums up why skirt suits, until now, lost their way after the ‘80s. Don’t get me wrong, I loved J.C.—and, obviously, Keaton looked fabulous in her pinstripes, pussy-bow blouses and clip-on earrings—but, coming of age in the early ‘00s, it felt even then like an outmoded visual representation of "having it all", skirt suit included.
