OPEN
Music: Dubin, Al and Rose, Billy. A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich and You. 1925. 7529-4 Composed by Meyer, Joseph. Harms, Incorporated. New York, New York.
Musical interlude: Air Contour #5 Cave Buckner copyright 2026
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“Create myself Down South
Impress all the women
Pretend I’m Samuel Clemens
Wear seersucker and white linens”
Those are the lyrics to a song by Tom Petty, called “Down South,” recorded in 2006, and it sums up this podcast perfectly—but of course, Tom, God rest his soul, had the ability to do that.
Oh my—summer is here, and it has come upon us with a vengeance! Chariots of fire streaked across the mornin’ sky and the bottomland corn in my hot n’ dusty Delta dawn transpired a couple of extra gallons of subterranean Missouri River water, just to cool down.
Hey! I’m Cave Buckner, your host of The Southern Minute. Welcome!
I’m tellin’ you, it’s firecracker hot! With 4th of July yard parties, it’ll be time to pull out the seersucker suit, which for me, has lots of good memories, even though it comes with its own baggage. You see, if you wear the seersucker, and you’re a male, you could either be viewed as an F. Scott Fitzgerald sophisticate—which is what you hope—or you could be considered a Bible-selling grifter, or at a flip of the coin, an Atticus Finch attorney, fighting for justice in some overheated Southern courtroom. It even became a fabric of choice for those Carnaby Street fashionistas, the 1960s mods on their scooters in England.
But over here, seersucker is what Southerners wore to church and family events because it’s unique cotton weave keeps homo sapiens like me, cool as a cucumber, allowing the skin to breathe.
The seersucker fabric was exported from Europe into the American colonies in the early 18th century, where it was used for work clothing, curtains and mattress covers, but also for pantaloons, vests and waistcoats. Because it was durable and cheap, it was also commonly used for slave clothing. Historians know this because run-a-way slave descriptions in local newspapers mentioned seersucker clothing for identification purposes for both men and women.
At the start of the 20th century, New Orleans played a big part in seersucker history. the Historic New Orleans Collection website states that this puckered cotton fabric was used by clothing manufacturer Joseph Haspel Sr. in the nineteen-teens, to make factory and railroad worker coveralls. Ivy league schools like Princeton, adopted the look, which became a real head-turner on campus.
Rich’s Dept. Store ad in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on May 29, 1925
Here’s what the Historic New Orleans Collection has to say about the fabric itself and why it was preferred in hot weather.
“Seersucker fabric has been around for centuries. Its name comes from the Persian phrase shir-o-shakhar, meaning “milk and sugar” for the alternating horizontal and vertical weave that created puckering-like fabric texture. The textile is made of cotton, linen, or silk (or combinations thereof), woven on a loom with threads at different tensions.
As the fabric is woven through the tight and loose threads, it creates alternating stripes of texture. These smooth and puckered stripes are what make the fabric especially breathable, because it doesn’t lay flat against one’s skin.”
I need to pause here, because to be seen in a seersucker suit today draws attention in ways you might not expect, as I explained in my opening. What’s not often said about wearing a seersucker suit is it is a chick magnet, whether you are in your 20’s or grampa’s age.
Women notice things men could care less about, and it you are wearing a seersucker suit, prepare to have women, who have never seen the material before, and secondly prepare to be petted like a golden retriever. For some reason, they can’t keep their hands off it, and they’ll drag their friends over to partake in what could become a spectacle, as has happened to me on occasion.
The attention was puzzling, so I did a little test by breaking a rule of Southern etiquette, which is you wear seersucker between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I attended one of those networking parties at a snazzy Buckhead hotel in Atlanta one February.
The groundhog had barely seen his shadow, and here I was acting nonchalant walking into the ballroom, like I might have been lost, wearing my seersucker at a time when the trees outside were still bare, while the occasional snowflake from Appalachia fell only to rest upon a nervous magnolia leaf.
I noticed a shift in the ballroom atmosphere. There were lots of young saleswomen making introductions and passing business cards, mostly representing cell phone companies, and I noticed they couldn’t take their eyes off my suit. Some even pointed in my direction. I was either a fool or a rock star. You would have thought I was that “Most Interesting Man in the World,” the Dos Equis guy, but without his debonaire beard and suntan. It was after all, February.
I noticed the aggressive ones circling, gearing up for an approach, not that I had any problem approaching them first. Like any species of wildlife, noticing something in their territory, they were not only curious, but intensely curious and they moved in one at a time.
Actor Gregory Peck wearing a seersucker suit in the film "To Kill a Mockingbird."
They approached with business card in hand and a guarded smile, with a mission to find out who I was. After the introductions and business card exchange, (I was a landscape designer for a Buckhead-based firm), the conversation fell on my suit. They loved it. Surely this wasn’t the first time they had seen a seersucker suit before. It didn’t make any difference. The suit did the talking.
Then they would politely ask if they could feel the fabric, as if entranced.
I’ll never understand this about women.
Anyway, I left the event with a pocket stuffed with business cards, some with scribbled private cell numbers on the back and I’m sure a good time was had by all. As I hung up the suit from the evening soiree, I couldn’t help but wonder, what strange creatures we are. But Sam Clemens knew this about the fairer sex. So did Tom Petty.
And it’s been through a lot, this suit of mine. From the gyrations of the Gator dance on the floor at wedding parties, to being lost and then found at a roadside BBQ joint coming back from a Hilton Head soiree, so I consider it an old friend. I’d like to be able to say, I can still fit into it, but sadly, I can’t. I’m keeping it for when I can, which is just until the next family gathering.
A feller can hope, can’t he?
Besides, the uniqueness of the suit has worn off on my nieces and their grown-up friends. I’m still just crazy old Uncle John, who is not “The Most Interesting Man in the World.”
I’m John Cave Buckner, your host of The Southern Minute—thanks for listening.
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In 1890, George Francis Train made a trip around the world in a seersucker suit, saying to the Daily Picayune, “Universe laughed at my seersucker suit. Now I laugh at universe. I am the seer. Universe is the sucker.”
To learn more about seersucker fabric and its role in fashion in New Orleans, go to this link
My jacket's gonna be cut and slim and checked
Maybe a touch of seersucker, with an open neck
I ride a G.S. scooter with my hair cut neat
I wear my wartime coat in the wind and sleet
—The Who “I’ve Had Enough”
Former Rolling Stones band member, Brian Jones, wears a seersucker suit coat.
Yeah, I'm sharp I'm really, really sharp
I sure do earn my pay Sitting on the beach every day,
yeah I'm real real sharp, yes, I am
I got a Corvette and a seersucker suit Yes, I have
— The Rolling Stones “The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man”