Suit yourself
Summer suit quest = your wedding fit. Plus fantastic fiction, art books & more
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It’s that time of year when I (Erin) start to get questions about what to wear to weddings. I wasn’t planning to tackle this Q again, since I’ve covered it the past two years and the recommendations in those ‘cordes still apply. But as I started to write about my wholly unrelated-to-weddings quest for a summer suit — one I could travel with, split into separates, and wear well into the fall — I realized that a suit is the only thing I would personally opt for as a wedding guest right now.
I’ve long been jealous of the fellas who, when a special occasion comes around, bust out their “one good suit” and just roll up to the function, problem solved. Meanwhile, ladies, how many of us spend far too much time (and money) trying on dresses, ordering a bunch of shoes so we have “options,” frantically copping accessories we will like never wear again, doing our hair, nails, makeup, etc.? Basta!
My ideal suit would be unfussy enough that I could pack it in my carry-on and wear it this summer walking ~20,000 steps a day in various European locales for the better part of a month. Come week three, I still need that suit to make me look like Lauren Hutton holding court at Studio 54…
I found it, and I’m sharing it today, along with:
The four suits I deliberated between, all made of cotton or linen from L.A.-based lines, plus a bunch of unisex options, vintage suits for brides, and a sick silk-linen one for guys. (Jonah just wrote about a couple other new summer-weight men’s suits the other day here.)
The motherlode of rare vintage Elsa Peretti jewelry.
A slapper swarm of culture, including a reissued photography book that captures home life through the eyes of a dude, a new novel that’s like the Moby Dick of the sky??, an underrated artist whose work you see on the menus of a legendary Bay Area restaurant, and more.
Let’s get to it —
✨SUIT QUEST✨
In terms of fit, I wanted to get as close as I could to the suits rocked above by Winona Ryder and Julia Roberts in the early ‘90s. I was looking for a blazer that’s oversize, hip-length or below, with a lower button stance, creating a deep V, and trousers that were not just drapey but, to use a technical tailoring term, sloshy.
My answer was a crisp dark-grey cotton set with a subtle washed texture. It’s nicely finished but not too precious, designed in L.A. and made in Japan.