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Suit of the Week

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Tahari Suit, Seersucker Jacket and PantsFor busy working women, the suit is often the easiest outfit to throw on in the morning. In general, this feature is not about interview suits, which should be as classic and basic as you get — instead, this feature is about the slightly different suit that is fashionable, yet professional.

Amazingly, it won't be summer for a few weeks still — and yet we're digging this seersucker suit. We like the pieces together, but would probably wear them just as much apart:  the blazer on top of a navy or black sheath dress, or the seersucker pants with a white blazer and white tee. The suit is on sale, also — it was $280, now $140 in sizes 2-18. It's also available in plus sizes 14W-24W, on sale for $160. Tahari Suit, Seersucker Jacket and Pants

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90 Comments

  1. Reviews suggest it isn’t really seersucker but just a lightweight fabric with a pinstripe. I’ve been looking at Talbots’ seersucker collection, but I’m afraid I would only wear it like 3 times a summer. Thus, not very cost-per-wear effective. Love the look though. I think I like the Talbots one better. It has full length pants (these are 30″ inseam and would practically be capris on me), ankle pants, and a skirt option if I remember correctly.

    1. Sorry. The Talbots version has options for pants, shorts, or a skirt. Obviously shorts are useless for work, but the pants/skirt options are good.

      1. I do like the look of the Talbots seersucker shorts… buy definitely not as a wear-to-the-office item. More like nice weekend wear.

    2. Thanks for the inseam info… w/ short legs (32″ inseam), this length would look odd on me. Side note: Shorts, really? Hard to imagine wearing them w/ a jacket!

      1. I was waiting for a Suit post to bring this up – I am seeing women in NYC and NJ wearing short suits. The ugliness is astonishing. And these are gorgeous women too – makes me shudder.

        1. I’m in NJ – have not seen this yet, but thanks for the heads up – I have no poker face, so I will have to work to not look totally horrified… eeks!

        2. Wearing to work???? (Not that I think they would look good anywhere, but I can’t imagine EVER wearing shorts to the office.)

        3. Saw two women wearing them in PHX today. Granted, it’s HOT here and PHX is far more casual, but still– it looked somewhat odd. But somewhat okay too–or at least practical. I would *almost* consider it but I think I am not the right size for a shorts suit. But I am not not considering this…. West Coasters and fellow Phoenicians–any thoughts?

          1. I’m in PHX too. I think a shorts suit would be viewed as odd in the legal/business world. I’ve never seen shorts allowed as officewear even in casual offices or on casual days. I wouldn’t even think about wearing a shorts suit and would think it odd on someone else even if they looked great in it.

          2. While it def. looks odd, it in theory should be considered more conservative than a skirt! It is a barrier to between the legs, no flashing, etc. Most “short suits” come right to the knee cap providing more coverage than most skirt suits. Though, I have seen the super short shorts ones too, though never seen anyone wear them. I work in biz cas and I see all the support staff wear capris and some wear to the knee shorts but I have never seen any of the attys wear it.

    3. If you don’t mind waiting (and taking a gamble), Brooks Brothers does seer sucker every summer & they go on a huge markdown towards the end of the season.
      Your cost per wear wouldn’t be great this summer, but the quality is amazing & style classic – so you should more than justify the purschase when you buy it on clearance & wear for many summers ahead.

      1. I have wanted a seersucker suit for years, and Brooks’ outlet has a lovely one that I just got a few weekends ago for under $200 total (skirt and blazer). The skirt was a fantastic pencil to A-line shape (no Brooks mom-pooch!). I just had the bust taken in (I am not buxom) and can’t wait to get it back from my tailor.

        Get thee to Brooks outlet.

        Oh–and the other reason that I recommend Brooks’ seersucker is that it’s true seersucker, with a twist in the fabric. Not just striped!

      2. Agree with the Brooks Brothers’ seer sucker; it’s a quality suit that I’ve had for three years now. End the season prices are bsically slashed in half. My suit has a fully lined skirt (a novetly for most seer sucker). Brooks Brothers also sells petites (for those of us who are short).

        And agreed, while you won’t be able to wear it much this year, you’ll wear it year after year after that. You can even match the jacket or the bottoms with a solid bottom or jacket (so you’re getting more than one look out the ensemble!).

    4. I agree! A 30 inch inseam would look ridiculous on me since I’m about 5’8″.

      1. Oops–it looks like there is only 1 left and it is a Size 2. If that’s you, awesome. If not, sorry I got your hopes up :(.

  3. I love the way this looks on the model, but have a feeling (with my experience with Tahari suits), this would not look great on me in person.

    Also, just to gripe — why can these things never be sold as separates??

  4. Kind of a thread-jacking here:

    I’m looking for a light gray summer-ish skirt suit, ideally wool or a blend. I cannot seem to find one at all my standard suit places (J. Crew, Banana, Nordstrom, the Brooks Brothers outlet). Any suggestions?

      1. I got one at Ann Taylor on sale and am very happy with it. One question I have is that most skirtsuits I buy fall right below the knee for me, in other words right above my calf (much thicker/more muscular than my knee). The AT saleslady told me it is the length ppl are now wearing at conservative offices. Is this true? I plan on using it for formal workdays and interviews. I would like to hem it to right at the center of my knee b/c that would lengthen and slim my legs, but if I should err on the more conservative length side I won’t both with the cost and hassle of hemming. Advice?

        2. I think the saleslady was full of crap. I’m in BigLaw, and no one — not even the female partners — wears skirts that hit right above the calf. Hem away without worry!

        3. I like my skirts to fall just below the knee but I’ve definitely been the exception everywhere I’ve worked. I don’t think anyone will look twice if you hem it to the center of your knee instead (they just might look up it when you sit down if you aren’t careful!)

        4. I prefer to wear skirts just below the knee because I have ugly knees and that length flatters my legs most (I’ve tried several). I think this is one of those things that you have to experiment with to find out what works best on your own body.

        5. I agree that below the knee is not necessary in Biglaw. At the knee or directly above the knee cap is fine. 3-4 inches above the knee, however, is not, IMHO, even if you are wearing tights (as I gawkingly observed on another associate this winter).

          1. Agree. Hem to the longer of (1) what is most flattering on you and (b) 2 inches or so above the knee.

          2. Make sure you are wearing the highest heels you’ll wear with said skirt when you get it hemmed. 2 inches above the knee is fine unless you’re hemming in bare feet and then put on 3.5 inch heels.

    2. It is NOT made of wool – but I got a great lighweight light gray suit from Benetton (at the wrentham outlet – this season – currently in actual Beneton stores) and a black one – both jacket, skirt and pants for $330!!!! I love the suits so much I’d pay full price at the store – my only gripe this season was the dress (my summer choice with jacket) was hideous. [For reference I am 5 foot 8 and they are long enough on me and work with my lack of waist, hips and bum].

      1. I would be careful with Benetton fabrics, in my opinion. I got a great black wool suit there, then stocked up on 4 other suits because I liked the slim cut of Benetton, but those weren’t wool, and now after a couple of years, they look pretty worn even though I have not worn them excessively. They are cotton-poly stretch blend, cotton, and poly. The tweedy poly-wool blend one still looks ok, but I really should get rid of the others.

    3. I know you already checked Banana and I posted this in another thread, but I got a 3 piece lightweight grey suit, fully lined for $170 – sounds exactly like what you are looking for. Might be worth it to check a different store and have them ship to you if they don’t have your size. The suit is not online.

      2. i also got what I assume is the same suit and love it–even though it’s not online anymore, I saw a bunch in the store a week or two ago, so do try calling their customer service line and they’ll find some in stores that can be shipped to you.

    5. Not sure of the fabric content, but I saw a beautiful grey Tahari suit @ Macy’s the other day. It was very streamlined (no funky pockets on the blazer) with nice trousers. Sadly they were out of my size.

      I second the recs for theory or J Crew.

  5. Both this one and the Talbots suit have fairly high-waisted pants, which don’t work for me as I have no “waist” to speak of. Anyone found a ncie seersucker suit with a lower-rise, straight leg pant?

    1. Brooks Bros usually makes one; if you’re just looking for the bottom half, Vineyard Vines could be a good choice (or jcrew, later in the summer — I didn’t see any options for women on the site recently but I know they’ve had seersucker pants before)

    2. Glad you asked that – I also immediately noticed the rise on these trousers was just immense. This would look like Mom Jeans: Seersucker Edition on me. I’d love a nice seersucker suit, though.

  6. I love seersucker . . . it is perfect for the hot, muggy climate of my city! Although I am usually a pants kind of girl, I love the idea of a seersucker skirt-suit, definitely in blue. I love the khaki seersucker look, but it is best pulled off by brunettes.

    (Also, anyone else get weak in the knees at the sight of a guy who can pull off the seersucker suit/bow tie combo and not look like an icecream man or grandfather?)

    1. Oh totally weak in the knees! Also at the winter equivalent- grey flannel trousers and a pale pink button down.

      1. Seconded the love for the pink shirts. My husband looks RAVISHING in a long-sleeve pink button-up. He’d never worn pink much before he met me, but pink on a man … damn.

        (I get what you’re saying re: the d-baggery, but i assure you my husband is not a d-bag nor an overgrown frat brother. Just swoon-worthy in pink :-)

    2. What is the opposite of weak in the knees? That’s pretty much how I feel about a male wearing seersucker, pink, madras, etc…

    3. proud to say my hubby looks great in one, although he has only attempted regular ties so far :)

      Anon, why do you hate the look so much? I agree, some men attempting it look a bit, shall we say, overgrown-frat-boy, but not all!

      1. For lack of a better way to describe it, all of those things strike me as somewhat feminine (I can throw anything by Vineyard Vines in this camp, too), and I just can’t really picture my boyfriend in any of it.

        It probably doesn’t help that every.single.male that I’ve encountered wearing any of these things has been a complete d-bag. Kind of like how I hate the name _____ because of one completely snotty elementary school nemesis! Associations die hard :)

        1. “It probably doesn’t help that every.single.male that I’ve encountered wearing any of these things has been a complete d-bag.”

          This has been my experience with men wearing pink shirts. It’s like they have to have extra “swagger” just to make sure people don’t think they’re fey. I have probably encountered it more than ten times now, and it’s to the point that when I see a pink shirt, I inwardly cringe and just wait for the d-bag aggro posturing to commence. I am sure, though, that not absolutely every man who wears a pink shirt is like that. Just the ones I run into.

        2. Seconded. Part of the problem may be my personal, mid-Atlantic, associations of Southern male fraternity with d-bagguery. I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule, but I’ve yet to meet that person.
          On the other hand, I do like an older gentleman in seersucker. Preferably with a mint julep in hand.

    4. Love love LOVE my man in his seersucker jacket [he usually wears it with khakis, but if he wore it to, say, a wedding he’d wear the pants] and bow tie. As for prints on the tie, I prefer navy with little pin dots or a wide green/blue stripe. Granted, I’m from the south, went to a verrry southern college and fraternized with the epitome of southern men.. I realize the look is not to everyone’s taste.

      1. My partner just bought a seersucker suit to wear to a wedding and he is stumped about shoes–any suggestions?

        1. Pictures of Senators on Seersucker Thursday in 2007 (yes, this was an actual thing) reveal 5 male Senators wearing white shoes, 2 wearing black shoes, 1 wearing saddle shoes (beige and brown) and Trent Lott wearing some hideous white and fuchsia loafers. As far as I can tell, anything goes.

        3. Yes, definitely white bucks if he has them, classic and chic. Might I also suggest a good pair of wingtips or other luxurious looking brown shoe.

  7. “Amazingly, it won’t be summer for a few weeks still”
    Really?? Tell that to the 92 degree, oppressively humid, sunburn-inducing weather outside my apartment.

    1. I think that was her point – that it may feel like summer in some places already, but it’s not technically summer yet.

  8. I like the look of this suit, but what kinds of shoes would you ladies wear with this shorter pant length? I wouldn’t want to wear strappy sandals like the model, but I feel like pumps and flats might look kind of weird. Ideas?

    1. I would persoanlly opt for light colored sling backs. I think that anywhere you can wear this kind of suit, you can wear slingbacks without any one blinking an eye. Maybe peep toe wedges. Not too high a heel though — I think super high heels (in my mind above 3 inches) plus super relaxed suit just does not really work. But that’s just me.

    2. Frankly, I think this pant length always ends up looking like you hemmed them too short. It seems both inherently casual and sort of frumpy at the same time.

    3. It may not fly in most convervative offices (and mine isn’t), but I would do the suit with a summer brogue or oxford.

    1. Her work clothes look fine to me. As for the merits of the suit, who knows if what she’s saying bears any resemblance to the truth?

    2. Can’t view the slideshow (blocked at work) but really hoping that the white pencil skirt and champagne colored “shirt” (hellooooo, cleavage!) is NOT one of her work wardrobe photos. Really, really hoping.

      1. I actually work in banking (although not for Citigroup).

        I can’t get the slideshow to play at work either but I looked up a few pics on the internet of her. I don’t think her clothes are inappropriate – she doesn’t show clevege and all of her skirts were below the knee. But she certainly does look sexy in them as most are fitted and really show off her amazing body.

        As far as the lawsuit, it’s hard to believe that she was fired for violating the dress code but maybe that isn’t the official reason Citigroup is citing for the termination?

      2. Okay found a slideshow on CBS news. Holy cr*p this is exactly the type of clothing that screams sexy secretary/naughty librarian – faux demure in that it is suits, knee length skirts, etc., but everything is skintight (doesn’t have to reveal skin to be revealing!). Whether or not her lawsuit has merit – I can’t comment – but she looks more trashy than classy.

        1. I also thought it was very “sexy secretary.” The other thought I had was – this is how the movies dress women in “executive” positions, but that’s the movies. In real life, clothes shouldn’t be that tight.

    3. I think the issue people have is that she has a large chest, but what’s a girl to do about that? Nothing seems to be low-cut or too short. Yes, the clothes are rather close fitting, but to me it seems more like they fit right and aren’t too tight/revealing.

      1. A girl can choose to wear clothes that aren’t skin-tight, regardless of the size of her chest. Many, many women with large chests wear fantastic, well-cut, well-tailored clothes in the workplace that don’t look like they were shrinky-dinked onto their bodies…

    4. Someone on Jezebel made the comment that it may not be what she wore, but her behavior coupled with what she wore, that made the difference. One of my coworkers has a body equally as good or better than this woman, but she also has a very low-key demeanor (and does not act vain or self-involved) and I don’t think anyone has ever found her “distracting,” although she is stunning and people do comment about that out of her earshot. I also, however, worked with a woman one time who had DD breast implants (and was not shy about talking about them), who wore everything cut down almost to the navel and as tight/short as she could possibly make it, and made a habit of flirting with married men at board meetings and company functions. That woman got fired, and yes, her inappropriate appearance was part of it – but it was the behavior way more than the boobs or the clothes that caused the termination.

      I think there’s also the case to be made that if her work was absolutely stellar, they probably wouldn’t have fired her. I have yet to see a situation in my decade-and-a-half career where a really amazing employee was fired over a superficial issue. I have, however, seen plenty of situations where superficial issues are used as justification for getting rid of someone who does not perform. Or who continually makes themselves a problem for management.

    5. I think she was pushing it. Not sure if it was inappropriate enough to be fire-worthy and it sounds like her co-workers were hostile. But some of the outfits and poses in the slideshow were pushing it. C’mon, skin-tight skirts? Cleavage? That white pencil skirt/champagne shirt that’s falling off of her? At one point, she says she got criticized for wearing high heels to work, so she brough flip-flops to move stuff around. That’s swinging from one extreme to the other. I can’t imagine flip-flops being OK anywhere except under your desk on a bad day.

      1. She wore flip flops because the day before she had to move boxes, a male colleague wore flip flops in to do the same thing.

  10. If you buy a seersucker suit (and why not?) be sure to buy it a bit large so you can wash it without shrinkage worries.

    1. This is reviving my ire at my once-upon-a-time cleaning lady, who WASHED and DRIED my (lined) Brooks Brothers seersucker suit because, well, who knows why (insurmountable language barrier) and everything but the lining shrunk. It was such a great suit. I got it about six years ago. I am currently sale-stalking the Talbots skirt, pants, and jacket in seersucker, and the skirt and jacket in blue Oxford cloth. And I love, love men in seersucker suits, although not bow ties with them (or ever). But I’m from the southernmost South so maybe take it with a grain of salt.

          2. There are some men that don’t look dashing in anything. But most any man looks *better* in a tux.

  11. I’m not a fan of this suit. For some reason, the light blue screams “pajamas” to me. But according to the posts above me, I’m in the minority ;)

  12. Oh, and I share the belief that “seersucker” should only be used to describe that lovely type of cotton fabric that has a pucker, an up-and-down texture. When I was a youg’un, we called fabric that looked like seersucker, but wasn’t, “railroad stripe fabric.” Maybe that term is still used to describe white or cream cotton that is striped with close together, light-blue or black, tiny pinstripes.

  13. I have always thought there must be men somewhere, perhaps in Charleston, S.C. or even Atlanta, who could pull off a seersucker suit. In Chicago, however, the men who try to pull it off just look ridiculous and costume-y, and they remind me of Nick Nolte’s southern lawyer in Cape Fear!

    1. I’m in Atlanta, and I’ve heard seersucker suit referred to as a “South Georgia Trial Lawyer Suit” more than once.

  14. The seersucker suit does work in Charleston. My bf (born and raised in Ohio) looks great in one. Some call them Broad Street overalls because so many lawyers here wear them to work in the summer.

  15. My BIL (from Atlanta) wears seersucker in the summer, with bow tie. He does look like a very proper southern gentleman. :) My DH (a tech guy from the northeast) would just look silly in it.

    I have a seersucker suit that I got at Banana a couple of years ago – very nice, and a true seersucker fabric.

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