Time to Legalize Seersucker in September

           Today is the first day of fall, although there is not exactly a nip in the air or frost on the pumpkin.  In fact, according to the local TV weather person, the high today here in Elvis’ hometown is supposed to hit a record 98 degrees with a heat index approximately the same as Ted Williams’ lifetime batting average. 

            And here’s the really sad part.  I am wearing a medium weight, dark worsted wool suit.  Consequently, I am perspiring like either Dick Nixon in his first debate with JFK or Albert Brooks in Broadcast News. 

            If I had any fashion courage at all, I would be wearing one of my seersucker suits.  But on Labor Day, I put the seersucker and poplin suits and the white bucks in my cedar closet.  According to the unofficial rules of the Fashion Police, they are to stay there until next Tuesday, May 31, the day after Memorial Day. 

           I have no idea who came up with the fashion rule that prohibits seersucker in September.  Probably some Junior League committee.  But whoever the Fashion Police are, I would like to submit to them a motion to reconsider and issue a new decree stating that it is okay to wear seersucker on any day of the year in which the temperature is over 90.   

            Fashion rules should be based on the temperature, not the calendar.  This is particularly true in this era of global warming when summer, like daylight savings time, arrives in late March and does not depart until early November.   

            I firmly believe that a seersucker suit is the greatest invention in the history of men’s fashion.  They weigh about an ounce and require minimum maintenance.  You don’t have to worry about keeping a seersucker suit pressed.  A seersucker suit always looks wrinkled.  It’s supposed to look wrinkled.  When I show up at my office or at the courthouse on summer mornings resplendent in seersucker, it makes no difference whatsoever that I look like I slept in my suit.  A seersucker suit is wrinkle chic. 

            Limiting such wonderful suits to three months a year is the worst fashion idea since the leisure suit. 

            Conversely, the worst invention in the history of men’s fashion is the so-called “year-round medium-weight suit,” like the one I am perspiring in at this very moment.  It’s a sauna suit.  It is a fashion abomination.  If a southern man wears medium-weight suits 365 days a year, he is going to sweat to death in the summer and freeze to death in the winter. 

            And so, I have decided to make a fashion statement.  Literally.  This coming Monday morning, I am going to turn on the Today Show at 7:00 a.m., and when Al Roker says, “Here’s what’s happening in your neck of the woods”, I’m going to pay close attention.  If the local TV weather person tells me that in “my neck of the woods” the forecast high will be 90 degrees or above, I’m going to tell the fashion police that they can kiss my seersucker covered fanny.  I’m hauling the seersucker out of the cedar closet and wearing it until the leaves are changing, the frost is on the pumpkin, and my air conditioner has been shut down for the winter.