American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
The surprising story of how the plain black suit became a symbol of masculinity, democracy, and modernity.
How did black suits become so ubiquitous? In Suitable, Broadway-costumer-turned-Harvard-historian Chloe Chapin answers these questions by tracing the shift from the colorful, flamboyant attire of eighteenth century men to the plain, dark suits of the nineteenth century. Building on the innovations and ideas of both the American and the Industrial Revolutions, Chapin characterizes this swift style change as the “Sartorial Revolution,” a shift that radically rewrote the language of fashion, gender, and power. In this richly illustrated book, Chapin tells the surprising story of how the Founding Fathers influenced not only politics and government, but the next 250 years of men's fashion. Drawing on a wealth of visual, material, and written sources, Chapin traces the development of suits from the American Revolution through the Civil War, exploring their impact on American identity and showing how suits became a symbol that linked masculinity to democracy and modernity.
Suitable shows how fashion is more than mere appearance, and illustrates the key role men's suits have played in shaping the modern world.
A former Broadway costumer, Chloe Chapin has a PhD in American Studies from Harvard University, and master’s degrees from the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Yale School of Drama. She has taught at Harvard, FIT, Parsons, and Reed College, and been a Fulbright Scholar and held research fellowships at the Smithsonian, Mount Vernon, Monticello, the Huntington Library, and the American Antiquarian Society. For her first book, Suitable, Chapin took her designer’s eye into the historical archives, in order to better understand the visual, material, embodied, and performative elements of men’s suits and their impact on the modern world. She works at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, MA.