Depending on who you ask, seersucker season starts either on Memorial Day or Easter (most say Memorial Day, while some will insist on Easter). Since we’re now officially in seersucker season – no matter how you count it – I thought I’d pull some style tips from an unexpected source: Trent Lott, the former US Senator from Mississippi who started Seersucker Thursday (a short-lived Congressional tradition that has since been discontinued, although it’s sometimes carried on by staffers).
Trent’s dos-and-donts for seersucker include:
- Do wear pastel-colored ties. “You can wear different ones,” Lott said of his tie color choices. “I wear yellow. But the biggest hit is pink and matching pink socks, and [with] your white bucks, it all matches up nicely.”
- Do wear a neck tie or a bow tie. “Either one. I remember a couple of senators wore bow ties,” Lott recalled. “Bob Bennett from Utah did. I don’t wear bow ties. I prefer a regular tie, but some people clearly like the bow ties with the seersucker.”
- Do match one’s socks with one’s tie. See above photo.
- Don’t wear black shoes. “You shouldn’t wear seersucker without white bucks,” Lott said. “If you show up in black shoes, you’ve just blown your fashion style.” In fact, black shoes are so repellent to Lott that he called them the biggest faux pas possible. “The biggest one is, you can’t wear off-color shoes. They do have one seersucker with a brownish stripe, a light brown. A stylish light brown might work [for shoes].”
- Don’t wear the suit out-of-season. Alas, not every day can be Seersucker Day. This is a strictly Memorial-Day-to-Labor-Day affair. Lott is conservative in his usage, wearing his seersucker “three, maybe four times a summer.”
- Don’t panic if one does not yet own a seersucker. Scrambling for a suit? Lott says to remain calm. He is not partial to any particular brand, but he recently visited Brooks Brothers. “They have a nice supply of them” in stock, he reported.