Tom Whitehurst
Sunday, August 26, 2001
Let's make sensible fashionable
Our official uniform should be seersucker
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| Photo courtesy of Ben Silver of Charleston, S.C. |
| Seersucker suits may just be the perfect business attire for steamy South Texas weather. |
With my own eyes, in a downtown restaurant on an August day, I saw all the evidence I needed - American Bank employees wearing short-sleeve seersucker shirts with the bank's logo. And it wasn't a Friday. Which meant that it was OK to wear seersucker any day of the week. Now there, I thought, is an employer who looked on the map, figured out where we live, listened to The Weather Channel, noticed that it's hot, and took a rational approach to making its employees comfortable without detracting from appearances.
The employees can either dress up in non-logo professional attire, or they can wear casual clothing with the bank's logo, which they can buy at a discount through the Land's End catalog, bank president Al Jones said. Seersucker shirts just happened to be one of the items available from the catalog.
Anyway, the real issue isn't who's the most loving employer in town. The real issue is, whatever happened to seersucker?
You remember seersucker - or maybe you don't because you're not old enough. I'm 44 and I've mostly only heard stories - enchanting stories about suits made of crinkly, blue- and white-striped cotton fabric that looked thick but felt weightless, that made summertime feel cool in the days before air conditioning, and that could be wadded up and stuffed into the washer and hung out to dry. In olden times, these stories go, men wore seersucker suits during the hot months. They were cool - that's cool as in temperature, and as in hip, rad, phat.
The aging of seersucker
Now, if fashion writers are to be believed, seersucker is the purview of the elderly gentleman who hasn't weeded out his closet, or of the younger man who wants to make an eccentric fashion statement.
"The suit suggests an all-American Southern gentleman who knows how to mix a mean mint julep and takes the time to sip it on a hot summer day," according to Joan Fenton, who dispenses fashion tips to men for the St. Petersburg Times. "This is not an 'everyman' style. The man who wears a seersucker suit is self-assured enough to wear something offbeat; he's a bit of a maverick who understands the nuances and subtleties of dress. He may enjoy being the center of attention. He certainly should not be someone who likes to fade into the woodwork."
Or, how about this assessment from the Fashion Police: "There are those who view this summery ensemble more as a costume than a legitimate suit since it's lost some of its popularity through the years. To be honest, we haven't seen one in ages, and when we have, it's been on men over the age of 70 who wear it with a straw hat, bow tie and white bucks."
I can't help but suspect that there might be a few people south of 70 who'd rather pop a top than drink a mint julep, and who don't want to look eccentric but wouldn't let that stand in the way of being cool - as in temperature, not as in hip, rad, phat. And I can't help but think that people north of 70 might be able to teach people south of 70 a thing or two.
Seersucker, it seems, is like longhorn cattle and buffalo - perfectly adapted to the environment, and yet we were compelled to replace it with something less so.
Jack English, who has been in the men's wear business since 1953, recognizes the illogic. He remembers when he would keep a stock of seersuckers in every size. Nowadays, he carries maybe one or two in stock, just to show customers who might be interested in ordering one, and sells maybe a dozen a year. He has a gut feeling that they're about to make a bit of a comeback, and he may stock a few more next year. But the comeback won't be overwhelming, which is a shame.
"Seersucker's a marvelous look and so absolutely cool, about the coolest thing you can wear in the summer," he said. "It still looks like a million bucks."
Blame it on the AC
English isn't sure why seersucker fell out of favor through the years, but agrees that air conditioning and the development of lightweight wool fabric may have had a lot to do with it. He remembers when wool came in only one weight and was both hot and itchy.
Air conditioning or no, English can see no downside to seersucker in a climate like Corpus Christi's, except perhaps that it makes too much sense.
"I'm in air conditioning right now," he said, "and I could stand to be a bit cooler."
Here's a thought: If the bluebonnet can be the state flower and the lightning whelk can be the state shell, why not make seersucker the official business professional uniform of Corpus Christi? English, whose opinion on the matter is not merely personal, but professional, likes the idea. So how about it?