Padding
soft material used for the suspension, insulation or padding of objects, for protection, comfort or to change shape
Padding is thin cushioned material sometimes added to clothes. Padding may also be referred to as batting or wadding when used as a layer in lining quilts or as a packaging or stuffing material. When padding is used in clothes, it is often done in an attempt to soften impacts on certain zones of the body or enhance appearance by adding size to a physical feature. In fashion, there is padding for:
Breasts – sometimes called falsies
The male crotch – usually called a codpiece.
Height – usually in shoes and often called elevator shoes
Width of shoulders, called shoulder pads – in coats and other garments for men, and sometimes for women.
Bombast, consisting of horsehair, flock, bran, wool, rags, or cotton, was the padding used to give the required bulk to certain fashionable items of dress in Western Europe around 1600. It was used in particular for men's trunk hose, but also for women's trunk or cannon sleeves (1575–1620).
To alter features
Some padding is added to emphasize particular physical features. Women, for instance, rarely have prominent shoulders, but for some years shoulder pads have been added to women's blazers, dresses (blouses, etc.). This gave them a more masculine outline which was sometimes thought to be of benefit in business situations.
“Padding” enters the record as soft material used for the suspension, insulation or padding of objects, for protection, comfort or to change shape. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Padding, soft and material can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Padding” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Padding, soft and material provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2794488. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1600, 1575 and 1620.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Padding” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.