Although seersucker is often associated with blue stripes, you may be surprised to learn that you can wear a solid seersucker suit instead.
Seersucker is a wonderful fabric for the summer heat but its distinctive appearance can be difficult to wear. In this guide, you will learn why you should consider a solid seersucker suit:
- What Is Solid Seersucker?
- Benefits Of Solid Seersucker Suits
- Drawbacks Of Solid Seersucker Suits
- Where To Buy Solid Seersucker Suits
- Alternative Solid Seersucker Fabrics
Simply use the links above to jump ahead or scroll down to read it all.
Solid seersucker is an excellent summertime alternative to the striped or checked seersucker suit. Rather than featuring any patterns, it is made from a solid fabric but shares some of seersucker’s revered benefits.
Traditionally, seersucker is made from cotton that has been woven in a specific way. Although it can occasionally be made into checks, seersucker is believed to be a translation of the Hindi Sanskrit phrase “sheer shakar”, which means “milk and sugar”.
Supposedly, this term refers to the juxtaposition of soft and smooth stripes and the way seersucker is made. Usually, seersucker can be identified by its blue and white Bengal stripes. Therefore, technically speaking, solid seersucker is something of a misnomer.
Nevertheless, solid seersucker does indeed exist and although a relatively recent creation, it is growing in popularity.
Benefits Of Solid Seersucker Suits
In our main seersucker guide, we talk about its general benefits such as its lightweight construction and breathability. However, we wish to focus on solid seersucker in this particular article.
Firstly, solid seersucker only features a rough, puckered finish rather than having an interchanging rough and smooth texture. As a result, it allows for excellent ventilation in the heat and keeps you cool under the sun.
Like a typical striped seersucker suit or seersucker sport jacket, solid seersucker may unlined and unstructured. As a result, it creates a casual look, which is why it’s quite popular.
Men who wear a striped seersucker suit often enjoy the style for its casual look. However, it can appear somewhat too casual from time to time.
Conversely, a solid seersucker suit is much more versatile. As you aren’t bound by the contrasting colours in the stripe, the suit can be structured with padding in the shoulders and you can wear a greater variety of accessories.
Striped Vs Solid Seersucker
Similarly, the style of a seersucker suit still retains the cool sprezzatura look but you can wear it for lots of different occasions. Comparatively, a striped seersucker suit will be quite limiting and you may only wear it in certain settings.
On a similar note, seersucker suit without any patterns is significantly less preppy with or without structure and padding.
Therefore, if you’re seeking a more mature style of seersucker suit, you may want to consider it without stripes.
Drawbacks Of Solid Seersucker Suits
Generally speaking, solid seersucker shares many disadvantages to striped seersucker. For instance, it still has a tendency to crease even if the wrinkles will be less obvious thanks to the puckered finish as mentioned above.
Additionally, since solid seersucker is not a traditional fabric, it isn’t always made from cotton. Although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it may irk purists who prefer the genuine article.
Indeed, many solid seersucker suits can be made from wool rather than cotton. Given that wool can be cheaper, this can have a positive effect on the price. Therefore, it may be considered a benefit rather than a drawback.
Furthermore, wool is also easier to weave into a puckered finish, which means that you still get the benefits of the overall look and performance.
That being said, it’s important to think about whether you want a formal or informal seersucker suit. If unstructured, it can be somewhat easier to wear as a seersucker sport jacket.
However, if you decide to include padding in the shoulders, you may feel that its style is too formal to wear with odd trousers.
Finally, the fabric’s rough puckered finish is still distinctively casual regardless of the construction that you choose. Therefore, it is difficult to wear solid seersucker in particularly formal settings.
Nevertheless, it is still far more versatile and more formal than striped or checked seersucker.
Where To Buy Solid Seersucker Suits
Since solid seersucker is still a rarity, it can be more difficult to find than it’s striped counterpart. However, it’s far from impossible!
In our general guide to seersucker, we list our 5 favourite seersucker suits. Surprisingly, three of them are made from solid seersucker and they’re all worth checking out.
Nevertheless, our favourite producer of solid seersucker is Indochino. Their solid seersucker suits are available in three different colourways, which have been featured in this article. Although they’re made from a wool blend, their seersucker suits offer the best performance for the price.
Furthermore, Indochino suits are made-to-measure and the results are excellent. As we mentioned earlier, the fit for seersucker isn’t very forgiving. However, since it’s custom-made and solid, you needn’t worry.
Indochino’s seer sucker suits are available from $399. Yet, you can benefit from a 10% discount with our exclusive code “BESPOKEUNIT“.
This code can be used both online and in Indochino’s store, which reduces the final price to $360.
Otherwise, if you’re looking for a cotton seersucker suit, Suitsupply would be our first choice.
Alternative Fabrics
Finally, you don’t necessarily have to opt for seersucker if you prefer a different solid fabric for summer. For instance, there are a number of lightweight woollen weaves.
However, wool is very different from seersucker in that it tends to be heavier and have a more structured design. As a result, it’s more formal and not quite as easy to wear for the summer.
Nevertheless, wool is certainly worth considering and we discuss its benefits further in our wool fabric guide.
Otherwise, you might prefer linen, which is another popular summer fabric to stay cool. While linen shares certain traits with seersucker fabric, it has its own character.
You can learn more about linen with its dedicated guide. Similarly, we will also compare seersucker and linen in an upcoming article soon!
What Next?
Now that you have learn about why solid seersucker is an excellent fabric that you should consider for summer, why don’t you check out some related content?
I had heard that wool seersucker (although perhaps less traditional) was actually cooler in summer since the wool fibers allow for better heat transfer than cotton—any insight on that? Excellent article, thank you.
Hi Robert,
There’s probably some truth to that. Cotton is tightly woven but also has a very low tolerance for absorbing moisture. As a result, it quickly gets wet you sweat, which makes it hotter. Meanwhile, the wool with be able to absorb a lot more before getting saturated.
Best,
CP