Seersucker often evokes images of stodgy Southern dandies. But younger, more style-conscious men are embracing the material.
With help from new fabrications and trendy male shoppers, seersucker has expanded beyond the puckered blue and white stripes in cotton. Most wear it as separates, not as a whole suit, according to Cutting Edge Image Consulting in New York. Style mavens will pair the blazer with some ripped jeans and the trousers with a blue blazer.
That look is popping up on the streets of New York, and in fashion magazines like GQ, which featured an Etro seersucker blazer as one of the hot items for summer. It has even caught on in Hollywood. Luke Wilson wears a seersucker suit by Haspel in his movie, “The Wendell Baker Story.” Actor Taye Diggs sported a blue seersucker blazer on the May cover of Ebony magazine.
Paul Wasserman, director of merchandising for Haspel, expects men to embrace seersucker because it’s a lightweight, relaxed fabric that is now being used in slimmer silhouettes. “Seersucker has a little more attitude to go with it now.”
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Edited by Curt Wagner ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])