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On a sticky, sweltering summer day in August, most of us will reach for a knit polo, short shorts, and a pair of slip-ons well before the thought of a tailored jacket and trousers ever crosses our minds. Fair play. Suits, for all of their sartorial clout, don’t have a reputation for easy-wearing comfort, especially during dog days of summer. Atlanta-based tailor Sid Mashburn, however, is not like the rest of us. For one thing, he’s part of a longstanding tradition of Southern gentlemen whose decorum around suiting doesn’t waver, regardless of how sultry the forecast may be. For another, Mashburn is a menswear veteran with decades worth of expertise in the fabrics and fits that will keep you feeling (and looking) as cool as a freshly-poured mint julep, whether you’re commuting to the office or boogying to Whitney Houston on a wedding dance floor. We reached out to Mashburn for his best advice on how it’s done.
Wool isn’t just for sweaters
Despite its association with your favorite fall layers, the best fabrics for a summer suit are the ones made from 100% wool, Mashburn says. Naturally odor-repellent and wrinkle-resistant, a wool suit made from high-twist yarn (sometimes called “hopsack, “fresco” or “tropical” wool) will keep you just as cool as anything made from cotton or linen, with the added benefit of requiring less laundering—an important consideration in the sweaty months. “It’s nature’s performance fabric,” he says. “I know it sounds like I’m speaking for the wool bureau or something, but it’s true. I went to a wedding on the Redneck Riviera, and it was the guys wearing cotton suits and linen suits that were sweating to oldies. But I didn’t sweat a bit because of my fabric.”
It’s all about the weave
“It’s not about the content of the fabric or the weight so much as the construction and the yarn size,” explains Mashburn, who on a weekday in early August is wearing a suit made from a chunky four-ply Italian wool with a knobby texture and a net-like weave. The breathability of his suit, he explains, is a product of the fatter yarns used to weave it, which result in a more open structure than the finer yarns used in most wool fabric can achieve. “Breathability is as much about the yarn size as the actual construction. So even though the fabric has some weight to it by virtue of the yarn size, the open weave makes it breathable.”
Structure doesn’t have to mean stuffiness
Most of Mashburn’s summer suits are half-lined, he says, but there’s nothing wrong with wearing a fully-lined and structured jacket if the fabric is working in your favor. “A linen or wool suit could be fully canvassed and structured because the fabric is giving a bit of a climate adjustment already.”
Two words: monochrome seersucker
Seersucker, that iconic striped cotton fabric with the signature wrinkle, is one of your best bets for keeping cool (those wrinkles, it turns out, are there to create more air circulation) but a full seersucker suit can be a bit much. “We tend to think of the blue and white bicolor seersucker like Andy Griffith wore as Matlock,” Mashburn says. For a subtler look with just as much breathability, he recommends a monochrome seersucker instead. “It’s exactly the same weave and it performs exactly the way the bicolor seersucker does, but we sell it in navy, in khaki, in pink, in sage, it’s just the colors are different.”
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