There's a great Damon Runyan (Is that how you spell his name?) quote about the rumpled look of Seersucker expressing either a great degree of relaxed, confident elegance or a 'great need'. I'll try to find it, but that's the gist - You either look like a swell in it or a bum.
Edit: I was entirely wrong about this (see below). Runyan wore the relatively inexpensive rumpled Seersucker suit himself in the 1940's and admired the way that it was worn by those at both ends of the social spectrum. He considered it a fabric for both rich & poor.
Last edited by Terry Lean (2007-01-19 09:47:47)
I'm told the quote is that it expresses either 'a great will or a great want', but I'll still check.
Question: What do you call a man in a seersucker suit?
Answer: Partner
Seersucker did enjoy somewhat of a sartorial resurgence as recently as Summer '06, though worn more by fashionistas than Old Guard. I spotted a ss suit in the window of Oxxford and noticed several men wearing ss jackets with khakis or ss trousers with blue blazers.
http://blogs.chron.com/whitehouse/archives/2006/08/in_defense_of_s.html
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Features/CapitalLiving/072606_fashion.html
Seersucker was all the rage in Milan last summer. Jackets had already been around for a while but I saw s.s. suits in designer shops for the first time in 2006.
Peak lapels and ticket pocket not uncommon.
Mine is a plain sack tho, just a tad shorter than the classic:-) Got many compliments for it.
Btw, while browsing cloth samples at my tailor, I noticed that seersucker made by Holland & Sherry was a blend with a substantial percentage of polyester. A bit surprising...
Last edited by Daniele (2007-01-19 04:37:42)
Good article by Geo. Frazier in Esquire in mid-60's-"The Dapper Wrinkles of Seersucker."
It's a pity that Haspel can't do a USA-made seersucker suit with a natural-shoulder. As they are now, they're so horribly stiff and constructed. And fully-lined! What's that about? Does it cost a hell of a lot more to do a 1/2 or 1/4 lining? I know the seams then have to be "finished" but not necessarily to a great degree as the ones from Ben Silver are.
Good read. I have a blue and white seerscuker. It's a tad worn but maybe I shall give it one final tour this summer.
Can I float the POV that Seersucker SHOULD be well 'broken in' to look its best?
Nothing worse than gleaming, pristine, hardly-wrinkled-at-all Seersucker?
(I know the wrinkles are inate but if you over-press your Seersucker they get diminished).
I bet if we could find out the numbers we'd find that the number of actual WASPs who wear the 'WASP Look' is amazingly small.
WISPs (White Irish/Scottish Protestants) don't count, just the WASPs.
And yet the fantasy of these people is so strong in some quarters...
Ralph is a genius.
Edit: Too late in the day now but that would have been a good troll: Split the Trad world up into WISPs and WASPs and watch them fight!
Last edited by Terry Lean (2007-01-23 08:44:30)
Where does that leave all the WISCs?
And the thing I love the most is that the WASPs are one of the most 'mongrel' tribes on earth anyway!
As you all know I am an English country gentleman, a WASP to my finger tips, and yet thanks to my late fathers interest in genealogy I can claim kinship with any number of unlikely people.
The thought, it comforts me.
The 'purest' blood lies with all the other minorities!
Not much to do with Seersucker I know, but spreading happy thoughts is my occupation.
The whole WISP/WASP/WISC business is such a construct (Damn! That word again... I almost made it through a post without using it).
Last edited by stylestudent (2007-01-25 12:07:55)