Apparently there’s one factor Democrats and Republicans can agree on nowadays, and it’s … seersucker.
Sen. Invoice Cassidy (R-La.) and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) launched a decision this week to designate June 11 as “Nationwide Seersucker Day” and June 2026 as “Seersucker Appreciation Month.”
The bipartisan decision additionally deems each subsequent Thursday by means of the final Thursday in August 2026 as “Seersucker Thursday.”
Whereas the transfer would possibly really feel out of left area on this political local weather, congressional watchers know that is a part of a longstanding custom within the Senate. The truth is, the identical decision was launched in earlier years as effectively.
Credit score for the annual “Seersucker Thursday” custom goes to former Senate Majority Chief Trent Lott (R-Miss.). In line with the Senate’s official web site, senators within the South used to put on seersucker within the early 1900s to maintain cool in the summertime (the material may be very breathable). They continued to put on the material till air con grew to become extensively obtainable within the Nineteen Fifties.
However Sen. Lott preferred carrying seersucker, and within the Nineties he launched Seersucker Thursday, reserving it for a “good and heat” day within the second or third week of June.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) later launched the custom for girls in 2004.
“I’d watch the boys preening within the Senate,” she mentioned, in accordance with the Senate’s web site, “and I figured we must always give them just a little little bit of a horse race.”
In June of 2017, Sen. Feinstein made headlines for displaying as much as former FBI director James Comey’s listening to in a seersucker swimsuit.
Whereas some folks questioned the appropriateness of the swimsuit given the seriousness of the listening to, Feinstein’s look additionally drew reward on-line. And naturally, she wasn’t the one one in stripes that day.
“[Seersucker Thursday] is simply plain enjoyable and celebrates an American product invented in my house state of Louisiana,” Sen. Cassidy informed Roll Name. “It’s a lighthearted custom and reveals that the Senate isn’t a bunch of boring fits.”
The material itself has an fascinating backstory as effectively.
As for the time period “seersucker,” it derives from the Persian phrase shirushakar (or shir o shakka) ― which suggests “milk and sugar.” The material’s signature stripes and texture are the results of a particular approach that entails weaving linen, cotton, silk or artificial fibers on twin-beam looms at totally different speeds.
New Orleans-based haberdasher Joseph Haspel invented the seersucker swimsuit within the early twentieth century, and it rapidly gained recognition amongst southern businessmen earlier than spreading to Ivy League college students and professionals within the Northeast.
Lately, the material won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, however there’s no denying seersucker endures ― at the very least in the summertime warmth and humidity of D.C.