Clothing Definitions — definitions of garments and clothing terms from Apparel Search
Seersucker is a thin, all-cotton fabric, commonly striped, used to make clothing for summer wear. Seersucker is woven in such a way that some threads bunch together, giving the fabric a wrinkled appearance in places. This feature causes the fabric to be mostly held away from the skin when worn, facilitating improved heat dissipation and air circulation. The wrinkled look also ensures that seersucker clothing looks right even when worn in hot weather, and ironing is unnecessary. Seersucker was first used in the United States by the working class but was later adopted by the upper classes and became a staple of attire for the Southern gentleman. Common items made from it include suits, shorts and shirts.
Common items of clothing made from seersucker include suits, shorts, and shirts. The most common colors for it are white and blue, however it is produced in a wide variety of colors, usually alternating colored stripes and puckered white stripes.
Seersucker is made by slack-tension weave. The yarns are wound onto the two warp beams in groups of 10 to 16 for a narrow stripe. The crinkle stripe may have slightly larger yarns to enhance the crinkle. The stripes are always in the warp direction and ongrain. Today, seersucker is produced by a limited number of manufacturers. It is a low-profit, high-cost item because of its slow weaving speed. Seersuckers are made in plain colors, stripes, plaids, checks, and prints. Seersucker is used in curtains and summer suiting, dresses, and sportswear.
Seersucker was originally developed in India. The word originates from the Hindi, Urdu, and Persian words "shir o shakar" meaning "milk and sugar."
FYI: Seersucker suits are made with seersucker fabric ... Apparel Search, thought you may have been curious...
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/seersucker_suit ). 10/9/06 This article has been modified by Apparel Search |
Seersucker's American career ran from the bottom of the wardrobe to the top. It began as cheap summer work clothing, the puckered cotton costing little and forgiving heat and sweat. Students and then the upper classes adopted it, and the seersucker suit, usually in the classic white with blue stripe though produced in a wide variety of colours, plaids, checks and prints, became the recognised summer dress of the Southern gentleman, worn where a wool suit would be a punishment. Retailers such as Brooks Brothers carried it as a seasonal staple. The same cloth serves in shorts, shirts, dresses, sportswear and even curtains, anywhere a cool, uncreased cotton is wanted.
Today seersucker is produced by a limited number of manufacturers. It is a low-profit, high-cost item because of its slow weaving speed: the two warp beams and slack tension that create the pucker cannot be hurried. That economics explains the cloth's modern position, a seasonal speciality rather than a mass fabric, bought deliberately by wearers who want its particular combination of coolness, ease and old-fashioned summer formality. A seersucker suit is cared for as cotton: washed cool, dried without fuss, and never ironed flat, since pressing out the pucker would remove exactly the structure that makes the cloth work.
By slack-tension weaving. The yarns are wound onto two warp beams in groups of ten to sixteen for a narrow stripe, one set kept taut and the other slack, so the slack threads bunch together and form the crinkle stripe, which may use slightly larger yarns to enhance the crinkle. The stripes always run in the warp direction, on the grain of the cloth.
The fabric was originally developed in India, and the word comes from the Hindi, Urdu and Persian words shir o shakar, meaning milk and sugar, a description of the cloth's alternating smooth and rough stripes: the smooth stripe like milk, the puckered stripe granular like sugar.
Three reasons work together. The puckered stripes hold most of the fabric away from the skin, so air circulates and heat dissipates instead of the cloth clinging. Cotton breathes and absorbs moisture. And because the wrinkle is woven in, the garment looks correct without ironing and does not show the creasing that ruins smooth summer fabrics, which is why it became standard summer dress in the American South.