Tailors: can a RTW suit shoulder be padded to make up for a dropped shoulder?

[apropos]

As many of you may notice, most of us have a shoulder that is slightly 'dropped' relative to the other - it is an interesting medical fact that most dropped shoulders are on our 'dominant' side (go ahead, check it out!).

I have an especially pronounced dropped R shoulder, a lasting gift from years of playing competitive squash (a one-handed racquet game), that now-dead sport that simply reeks of old-money and the upper class.

In my RTW suits, this is (sadly) a little too prominent for my liking.

Can a skilled (or semi-skilled) tailor add additional padding to a shoulder to compensate for a dropped shoulder? Is this 'major suit surgery', on par with adjusting shoulder widths? Or should this procedure be avoided?

I look forward to your replies - thank you in advance!

 

[Despos]

Yes, a pad will help.

It is also very common to have a high hip on the same side as your low shoulder.

 

[apropos]

Thanks for that - is there any specific sort of pad or padding I should ask for? Any specific instructions I should give?

 

[CharlestonBows]

Yes, it can.

Just explain the concern about the shoulder to the tailor. They'll just slip a shoulder pad in, or just build it to the appropriate point with layers of thinner padding, depending on need.

 

[Despos]

Originally Posted by apropos

Thanks for that - is there any specific sort of pad or padding I should ask for? Any specific instructions I should give?

You should not use a tailor that you need to give instructions to. If you know more about tailoring than he does, move on.

 

[JFKJean]

I was told Ralph Lauren still produces padded suits. I don't know how much truth is in that but I wouldn't put it past them

 

[apropos]

Despos, thank you for your replies. Now to set out to find a competent tailor, fingers crossed.

Originally Posted by JFKJean

I was told Ralph Lauren still produces padded suits. I don't know how much truth is in that but I wouldn't put it past them
Black Label coats are (relatively) heavily padded to create a strong shoulder with distinct roping, Purple Label and Blue Label have softer (but still padded) shoulders on their coats. The coat in question here happens to be a Black Label coat.

 

[bbaquiran]

I have a dropped right shoulder. I'm right-handed.

If I have a tailor add padding to the right shoulder to even it out, will I also have to lengthen the right sleeve as well?

 

[Despos]

Sometimes. Don't do both at one time, put the pad in , then adjust the sleeve length.

 

[csheehan]

I have a dropped right shoulder and have had a pad put in a couple of RTW suits. To my eye it looks OK; my shoulders are square, and it corrects the problems of lapel bulge and creases on the back. On the other hand, I really don't like the feel of the pad so I usually forego it and put up with the fit problems and the visibly lower shoulder. The one bespoke jacket that I have does correct the fit issues but of course not the shoulder drop.

 

[Despos]

^
I don't see why your tailor did not adjust for your low shoulder.

 

[gdl203]

My tailor tried once and, although it looked better in the mirror, it felt very odd and uncomfortable. I went back a week later and asked him to take the padding out and revert to the original shoulder. I realized that I prefered the ripples caused by my dropped shoulder to the feeling of assymetric padding. YMMV

 

[AnGeLiCbOrIs]

My tailor did it for me recently and it turned out well.

Before:

After:
The shoulder still appears slightly lower but there is no more sagging in the chest.

 

[StopPolloition]

I do this to all my suits on both sides as I was cursed with bilaterally sloped shoulders. Usually the tailor will recommend starting off with a fairly small pad, but I've come to accept that I have rather sloped shoulders and skip straight to the large pad. It makes the armhole feel a little bit higher and took a bit to get used to the feeling of a pad. In college when I was too poor too afford the alteration (or so I thought, it ended up being not that expensive of a suit surgery) I used to fold a sock in thirds and put it on top of my shoulders.

 

[East Oakland]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but has anyone doe the opposite--remove padding from a RTW coat with padded shoulders (thinking about a RLBL here) to compensate for one shoulder being higher than the other?

I have very square shoulders to begin with, but one sits slightly higher than the other due to a bad cycling accident when I was younger. In my case, I wonder if it would make more sense to strip out some of the existing padding from the low shoulder rather than add padding to the other (since my shoulders are square to start with).

I also wonder if removing padding from shoulders is generally considered an acceptable method for making a coat sit better on someone with square shoulders rather than the major surgery typically used to make shoulders more sqaure?