"It only really exists on a naked man. The nearest thing in a garment would be the shoulder of a close fitting shirt in a thin jersey cloth; and even here the shoulder seam is probably placed to give an appearance of width. The same would apply to an unlined jacket made of jersey cloth.
All men’s cloth jackets of the normal type need a certain amount of canvas and padding, if only as a means to set the sleeve in correctly and to serve as a platform, as it were, from which to hang the “draping” of the cloth over the chest or back.
There have been times when it has been fashionable to show quite clearly that the shoulders are padded; it is not so today. We flatter ourselves that we can achieve much by cutting alone. Tailors therefore use their skill to make shoulders look “natural”. But this really means nothing more than a smooth shoulder line, slightly sloping to the sleeve. The end result is a width which is far from natural, but none the worse for that."
“ABC of Men’s Fashion” by Hardy Amies pg. 83
I think Amies description of the natural or soft shoulder is excellent. The main points to be extracted are that all shoulders have some amount of structure as some structure is required to set the drape of the coat.
Amies relegates the exaggerated padded shoulder to a distant fashion past and prefers to see structure achieved through “cutting alone.” This is something I have written about for sometime as my own observation of the work of many US, Italian, English and French tailors confirms this preference.
I think Amies also helps us understand how two very different and equally elegant styles of dress (as represented by SR firms Huntsman and A&S) can both claim to produce a “natural” shoulder. The effect of breadth, width and the squared shape preferred by some is achieved (or should be) by Huntsman through cutting not padding. In the same way, the hand made wadding and pad used by UK soft tailors also merely aids to set the drape that has been established through the cutting.
Cheers
M Alden