Seersucker Thursday - History of The Seersucker Suit

History of The Seersucker Suit

Seersucker weave was introduced to the American south, probably through British colonial trade, sometime in the second half of the 19th century.

In 1907 a New Orleans tailor made the first seersucker suit to make the summer wear more comfortable. He called the light weight, pale blue and white striped rumpled cotton fabric "seersucker" from the Persian words for "milk" and "sugar". The suits became widely popular because they retained their fashionably good looks even despite multiple washings that are necessary during the summer. In the 1920s seersucker suits were adopted by the wealthy Northerners who vacationed in the South and from there became near universal in Northeastern cities in the 1930s. Well into the 20th century, on the first warm days of spring, journalists would report on the seasonal transition in the poorly ventilated Senate chamber.

The wearing of seersucker suits declined with the advent of air conditioning. By the 1950s, air conditioning reached the Capitol, ending the necessity of seersucker suits there.

Gregory Peck famously wore a seersucker suit in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, creating a cliché of how small town Southern lawyers dressed invoked by later actors such as Andy Griffith. The image of a bow-tied, seersucker-suited young man in a boater hat is likewise a cliche image of a recent graduate of elite Northeastern colleges.