To Kill a Mockingbird: Atticus Finch's seersucker suit, and how to wear seersucker now

There are films where the suit is a costume and films where the suit is the character. In To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch is a widowed small-town lawyer in 1930s Alabama, and his clothes tell you who he is before he speaks: careful, decent, not rich, and not about to be hurried by anybody.

His suit is seersucker, a cloth men admire in photographs and hesitate over in a shop. The worry is nearly always the same: will I look like an extra from a period film, or like I am about to sell ice cream? Mostly that comes down to when you wear it and how much of the outfit you copy.

What does Atticus actually wear?

The film is black and white, so nobody can read the colour off the screen. Promotional art of the time shows a tan-and-white stripe, and that is how it is usually described. The details, from BAMF Style’s account:

• Seersucker cotton in a narrow stripe.
• A single-breasted, two-button jacket with notch lapels, no vent, and flapped hip pockets.
• A five-button waistcoat with a notched bottom and a pocket watch on a chain, worn in the Alabama heat because that is what a professional man did.
• Flat-front trousers with turn-ups, cut high enough that the belt disappears under the waistcoat.
• An off-white shirt with a point collar, a dark patterned tie, round spectacles, and a straw Panama outdoors.

Who made it is disputed. The New Orleans seersucker maker Haspel is reported to have supplied the seersucker suit, while Peck’s London tailor said it provided his wardrobe for the film. Both accounts may be partly true, since he wears more than one suit.

Why doesn’t seersucker look rumpled?

Because it is woven to look crinkled. Seersucker is made with some threads held slacker than others, so alternate stripes pucker. The puckers hold most of the cloth off your skin and let air move underneath, which made it a hot-weather staple long before air conditioning. The name comes from the Persian for “milk and sugar”, after the smooth and rough stripes.

It also means seersucker does not want a hard press. Hang it up and the creases mostly fall out; flatten it with a hot iron and you are working against the very thing the cloth is for. Care by cloth covers the rest.

When can you wear seersucker in Toronto?

The old American rule is Memorial Day to Labor Day. The Toronto version runs roughly from the May long weekend to Labour Day, which is also when the humidex makes the cloth make sense.

It is daytime cloth, and it fits:

• a garden party, a patio, a grown-up barbecue;
• a daytime summer wedding, as a guest, when the dress code is not formal;
• a summer Friday at an office that still wears jackets.

It does not fit an evening event, anything black tie, a funeral, or a client meeting at a conservative firm, where a navy fresco or hopsack keeps you just as cool without being noticed. The patio suit covers those cloths.

How do you wear it without looking in costume?

• Two pieces, not three. The waistcoat is the most period thing about Atticus. In a Toronto July it is also the warmest.
• One summer accessory. A Panama, a bow tie, white bucks: choose one. All three together is the costume.
• A quiet stripe. Blue-and-white is the stripe most people picture; grey, tan and very narrow stripes look calmer.
• Wear it as separates. The trousers with a navy blazer, or the jacket with navy or white trousers, are the easiest way in, and they double the wear you get from the suit.
• A plain shirt. White or pale blue, the collar open or with a knitted tie.

How should a seersucker suit fit?

Cotton seersucker has less give than wool, so it shows a tight fit sooner, and strain wrinkles look nothing like the cloth’s own pucker. Cut it trim but easy: the button closes without pulling, the seat has enough room for a garden chair, the sleeves show a little shirt. A summer jacket wants a light lining and a soft shoulder; ask how much lining the cloth can do without.

If you do want the waistcoat, you need Atticus’s rise. His trousers come up far enough that the waistcoat covers the waistband and the belt, and low-rise trousers under a waistcoat leave a strip of shirt on show every time you move.

Is a modest suit really better than an impressive one?

Atticus is not the best-dressed man in Maycomb and does not try to be. His suit suits the heat, the job and the town, and he wears every piece of it properly. That is why one moment in the novel lands so hard: during his closing argument he takes off his coat, unbuttons his waistcoat and collar and loosens his tie, and Scout notes she had never seen him do it before, at home or in public. Correct dress is so habitual for him that dropping it is a signal to the whole courtroom.

There is a lesson in that for real rooms. The right suit for a hearing, an interview or a difficult meeting is often plainer than the best suit you own, and worn properly it lets you choose the moment to loosen it. The lawyer’s suit and the interview suit make the same case.

Getting it made

Sam makes summer suits to your measurements, taken at the Vaughan studio or at your office or home on request, in three to four weeks with one fitting on the finished suit. For a June wedding or the first hot weeks, order in April or early May. The Drawing Board has no seersucker yet, so sketch the idea in tan linen: draw the Atticus three-piece, then switch the waistcoat off to see the two-piece you would actually wear. After that, book a time and look at the real swatches in daylight, where a seersucker stripe shows its true colour.

Where the details come from: BAMF Style and Black Lapel.