Help me with the novel? Summer suits

[J. Brisbin]

I'm writing a scene for my novel-in-progress, which is a literary/historical set in the mid-to-late twenties in east-central Arkansas. I was thinking of having one of my characters show up in a seersucker suit with a striped red tie, red pocket square, and spectators (and a boater, of course). I don't know if this is very '20s, though. I'm sure this would have been common 10 years later, but what about in 1928? When did the seersucker become a prominent summer suit and would that have been appropriate for a self-taught, itinerant tent revival preacher who is trying to get work as a farm laborer (assume he has unkown, but potentially unlimited means, and the working is to integrate himself with the community he's currently in and not a reflection of actual wealth or lack thereof)? What about pocket squares and spectators?

If a seersucker is not quite right for late '20s, then what would be a good alternative? Linen, cotton, or wool blend? And what about shoes? Plain white, or something else for a Mississippi River Valley summer?

Thanks!

 

[Rooster]

I've got some family reunion pictures from the mid twenties that would help you out, not a spectator or a pocket square in the bunch. I'll see if I can get them scanned and posted in the next couple days. There are alot of hats you guys will dig, boaters and just about every thing else.

 

[Orgetorix]

Re: Seersucker

It depends on the context.

From an article on authentically American clothing items by G. Bruce Boyer:

It became popular as the perfect cloth for hot, humid climes. In the South, men began to wear seersucker suits in the summer around the turn of the century as a more comfortable alternative to flannel and linen, but they were considered a rather cheap approach to dressing and had little fashion allure until university men began wearing them after the First World War. They were seen at tony country clubs in the '30s and '40s but didn't really catch on with businessmen in the North until the end of the Second World War, as witnessed in a newspaper column written by that great writer and dandy Damon Runyon in July 1945:

I have been wearing coats of the material known as seersucker around New York lately, thereby causing much confusion among my friends. They know that seersucker is very cheap and they cannot reconcile its lowly status in the textile world with the character of Runyon, King of the Dudes. They cannot decide whether I am broke or just setting a new vogue.

Linen and wool would both certainly be correct.