SUITABLE

What’s beneath the suit.

With a background in theatrical costume design (on Broadway and elsewhere) and training in human anatomy and “atelier” portrait painting, Chapin is a good fit to address her book’s overriding theme: “the hegemony of the suit-as-political-authority.” Sparked by a casual conversation with actor Daniel Radcliffe about midnight-blue dinner jackets on the set of Equus and later fueled by a quest to outfit the male chorus in a production of La Traviata staged unusually in 1860, Chapin set out to solve a seemingly inexplicable mystery: the sudden switch in men’s fashion between the end of the 18th century (no men wearing black-and-white evening dress) and 1850 (everyone was), and, more important, what it portended. Why, for example, did George Washington decide that a plain black suit seemed more presidential than his former colorful military garments? Or how did the invention of a flexible tape measure inspire entrepreneurially minded tailors in the early 1820s to prioritize production and uniformity? Much more than a historical or chronological accounting of an age of fashion, the book offers a close and lively examination of these and other trends that led to a “sartorial revolution.” The author focuses on a transformation in the way white American men began to dress after the American Revolution. She also considers the social and political underpinnings that developed after the Industrial Revolution and led to today’s dominance of the “power suit.” As someone who not only dressed others in suits for more than two decades, but also enjoys wearing them herself, Chapin wants readers to consider “how clothing is connected to power” and what the garments we wear can reveal about our humanity.

An entertaining debut that uncovers notions of identity in men’s fashion.