Striped for Spring

The grey pinstripe suit is a stalwart of a business man's wardrobe, second in importance only to navy blue. I come across a fair amount of such suits in  my travels, usually in heavier fabrics for Fall and Winter. I even have such a suit myself. Finding a version in a lightweight worsted for Spring and Summer is a real treat.

I found the jacket alone, priced $6.99, a crumpled, wrinkled mess, on the rack in a thrift shop. As we always do when I find a jacket that is or was clearly the top half of a nice suit once, my little daughter and I took it to the trousers racks to play a "matching game". Sure enough, there were the trousers, an equally wrinkled mess, for $5.99.

3/2 undarted jacket with a two button cuff, a "sack" if you will, but with enough shape to look good. The fabric is very lightweight and breathable, The front is fully canvassed. A good friend and well known expert in these matters took one look at this suit and surmised by the high cut of the lapel notch, and lack of button hole in the left lapel, that this garment was likely made by Hertling in New York in the late 1960s.

Given the fact that I really don't need to wear a suit, ever, and this is such a business uniform, I find that the big unlined rolling collar of a vintage Brooks Brothers shirt ($5.49) and a silk knit tie knock the seriousness of this one just enough to make it comfortable for walking around town.Sacrilege to some, but so too in a way is wearing a suit to a job wear others wear jeans. It's all about middle ground.

Hailing originally from Serry's of Hanover New Hampshire, a store that catered to Dartmouth students for nearly 100 years before closing it's doors in 2004. Perfunctory internet research shows that Serry's was founded by an Italian tailor, and later sold to a pair of Italian brothers in the late 1950s. Proof positive that the WASP stronghold on the right to wear these things was not as tight and exclusive as the nerdy world of clothing dorks would have us sometimes believe.

It might not be easy, but if you find a nice lightweight striped suit, pick it up. It makes a refreshing alternative to all the khaki and tan worsted that is the order of the day this time of year. Get striped for Spring.