Shoulder Pads & Felt

What holds this group together

Sort the layers inside a garment by what they do and three families appear. Lining covers and hides. Interlining gives the cloth flat support — it firms up a surface without adding thickness.

The products in this group do the third job: they add volume. They have thickness, they are three-dimensional, and they build a shape the cloth could not produce on its own. The curve of a shoulder, the roundness of a sleeve head, the fullness of a bag panel — all of it comes from here.

Within the group there are two separate worlds: the shoulder system (shoulder pads, padded pads, sleeve heads) and a sheet material (felt). The first works inside garments, the second mostly in bags and footwear.

How a shoulder is built

A human shoulder is not flat; it slopes, and the slope differs from person to person. A jacket shoulder is drawn as a straight, symmetrical line. This group fills the gap between them — not with one piece, but with three.

The most common mistake is confusing their jobs. If the sleeve cap is collapsing, thickening the pad is not the answer — the pad sits on top of the shoulder, not under the cap. That is the sleeve head's work. Equally, what stops the shoulder line stretching is not the pad but a strip of Terfix tape.

A jacket without a pad is not "more natural"; it simply asks another layer for shoulder support. Even soft-construction jackets use a thin pad or a roll — the question is not whether there is a pad but how thick it is.

Two measurements: thickness and curve

When a pad is chosen, thickness gets discussed and curve usually does not. Yet the curve is what decides how the pad sits on the shoulder.

• Thickness decides the character of the garment: thin pads give a natural shoulder in summer jackets and dresses, medium in classic jackets and blazers, thick in overcoats and uniforms.
• The curve has to follow the slope of the shoulder. A flat pad lifts at the shoulder point and raises a bump in the cloth — even when the thickness is right.
• A curved pad is handed: there is a left and a right. Fitted the wrong way round it distorts the shoulder line.
• The curve changes with the sleeve type; a set-in sleeve and a raglan do not take the same pad.

The practical check: hold the pad on the stand's shoulder by hand. If it lifts at the shoulder point, the curve is wrong. That takes thirty seconds, and a pad with the right thickness and the wrong curve gives a worse result than one with the wrong thickness.

When do you need a padded pad?

A shoulder pad is an object with thickness whose edge stops somewhere. Put it under cloth and the cloth takes its shape — a line forms where it ends, and that line can read from outside.

A padded shoulder pad solves it: covered with wadding, the firm edge stays under a soft layer, the transition spreads out, and no line forms in the cloth.

• If the outer cloth is fine and light, the covering is close to compulsory.
• If the colour is pale — beige, grey, light blue, tones where marks read — the covering is needed.
• If the surface is smooth and matt the mark is not hidden; textured cloths hide it.
• If the garment will go through an iron or a press, a covered pad makes a clear difference.

A heavy, dark, textured cloth already hides the edge of a pad, and a plain pad does the job there. The decision is made by looking at the outer cloth, not at a catalogue.

Felt: the odd one out

Felt belongs to this group but its job is separate. It is a surface formed by matting fibres together under pressure, heat and moisture — no weaving, no knitting, not even a yarn.

That method gives it three properties: thickness, a cut edge that does not fray, and no grain. The second is the decisive one: felt needs no edge finishing, it stays exactly as cut. That lets you treat it like a sheet material rather than a cloth.

• In bag panels and bases it carries the form and spreads impact.
• In footwear it supports the inner structure.
• Between two layers it works as filling.
• On accessory pieces with a visible cut edge it can become a design element in its own right.

What felt does in bags and footwear is close to what body interlining does in a garment: it gives an outer material a form it could not hold alone. The difference is that felt works as a separate layer rather than being fused on.

The products in this group

Common mistakes

• Expecting one layer to do another's job. If the sleeve cap collapses you do not thicken the pad, you add a sleeve head.
• Looking only at thickness and skipping the curve. A wrong curve raises a bump at the shoulder point.
• Mixing up left and right. A curved pad is handed.
• Using plain pads on a fine, pale cloth. The edge mark appears after the first press.
• Fixing the pad by machine. The cloth gathers; a pad is stitched in by hand.

When you order

Pads are chosen against garment sizes; there is no single measurement. Tell us four things: the size range, the type of garment, the sleeve type (set-in or raglan) and the weight of the outer cloth.

If you are not sure whether you need covered or plain, bring a piece of the outer cloth. Putting the pad underneath and holding it to the light settles it in a minute.

With felt, the thickness is discussed against the job; say what product it is for and how much support you expect.

Measurements, samples, stock and delivery are settled on the phone.