Spalla camicia (the shirt shoulder) ★

Degrees of it

Houses do this to very different extents. Some gather so lightly that the effect is visible only in raking light; others produce pronounced pleating along the whole shoulder. Neither is more correct, but the heavier version has become a visual signal of Neapolitan tailoring and is sometimes applied to garments that are otherwise conventionally built, a shoulder treatment used as a badge. It is also worth knowing that a gathered shoulder is not automatically hand-made. The effect can be produced on a machine, and is, in factory clothing sold as Neapolitan.

Whether to want it

It is a house signature, not a quality marker, and it is worth deciding whether you want to wear one. A gathered shoulder is unmistakably Neapolitan and unmistakably informal; on a business suit in a conservative city it will be read, correctly, as a statement.

It also does not suit every shoulder. On a sloping shoulder the gathering emphasises the slope; on a square one it softens usefully. Look at the two versions on your own body before treating it as a default.