Suitable

The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men
How did black suits become so ubiquitous? Why has men’s clothing been so plain since the American Revolution? In Suitable, American historian and costume designer Chloe Chapin offers a deeply researched and groundbreaking explanation for why American men’s fashion was standardized from the time of the nation’s founding and how it became an invisible form of social and political power.
The surprising story of how the plain black suit became a symbol of masculinity, democracy, and modernity.How did black suits become so ubiquitous? Why has men’s business clothing been so plain for the last 250 years? How did a style adopted by the Founding Fathers to differentiate themselves from European contemporaries become the dominant style for men around the globe?Suitable traces the shift from the colorful, flamboyant attire of the eighteenth century to the plain dark suit of the nineteenth c