Somethings are just under-appreciated in life: your mother's hug, properly fitted shoes, a decent dictionary, coconut covered doughnuts and seersucker clothing. It's the latter that concerns me today.
This cotton fabric could be more accurately described as "puckered pinstripes" as it is a closer reflection of how it looks. Those puckers, made from a 'slack tension' weave, allows heat to rise away from the body and negate any need to iron it. Heavily associated with the warm and humid American South, you may have seen movies where simple southern women (played by Chloris Leachman) look up sappily at their husbands (played by Fred MacMurray) and drawl, "You look so han'some in your seersucker suit." You'll cringe and think, "yeah, I'll give that a miss."
Don't. It just might save your life as it is currently saving mine.
Summer came late to Perth this year but it came on strong. This week the temperatures more than flirted with triple digits. What to wear when one is melting? Those southern gents really were on to something. Time to dig out the seersucker camp shirts and shorts. As I sit here I am wearing a red plaid seersucker camp shirt and blue floursack capris. I look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or LIFE magazine's Miss American MidWest. I can see two other seersucker shirts and two seersucker shorts. I never knew I owned so much...or wished I owned more. And I'll never know why Aussies wear so much polyester, and close fitting poly at that, during the hottest months. Are they nuts or just unseeing to the cool chic of crinkled cotton?
So, I'm here to tell you that the next time you are browsing through a catalog or thrift store and spot some puckered plaid clothing, drop the phony southern drawl and reach for some cash. You'll be thanking me later.
