(FORTUNE Magazine) – Fashion doyennes have declared the linebacker look passe, but a lot of women aren't listening. Kathleen Kirkwood isn't. Not only does the former Ford agency model wear shoulder pads, she also sells them. She's the creator of ''Pints of Pads,'' the $9 to $12 containers of two detachable shoulder pads that are appearing on vanity tables across the U.S. Kirkwood's product took off six years ago, and 1989 sales are expected to reach $5 million. Women are stubbornly continuing to buy the spongy pads, which hide a multitude of anatomical sins. Says Kirkwood, 30: ''They give you a shape, they make you look thinner, and they make your clothes drape well.'' A dropout from the State University of New York at Albany, Kirkwood gave up her modeling career after a car accident in Manhattan left her with an unphotogenic bump on her thigh. She landed a sales job with a Seventh Avenue fashion designer and conceived the clip-on shoulder pad after getting tired of always safety-pinning her pads to her bra straps. To be extra hip, she sells them in pint-size containers that look like those of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Big competitors such as Warnaco quickly shouldered their way into her business. To get enough financing to survive, Kirkwood sold a controlling interest in her company last year to Banff Ltd., a $45-million-a-year women's apparel wholesaler. Now she's earning a six-figure income as president of the Banff subsidiary and planning to sell scarves and socks in addition to pads. She runs triathlons in her spare time and says being an entrepreneur is much better than being a model: ''Now at least I know the rent will get paid.''