Book Review: Suitable
Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men by Chloe Chapin I’ll start by saying, I absolutely love this book and unreservedly recommend it to literally every person who wears clothes. Fashion scholars, lay people, every gender whether you wear suits or not, American patriots, American immigrants, people from other nations who either love or hate America[1], there will be sections that are fascinating for all. Understand that I am not a neutral reviewer—I have absolutely loved fashion history and criticism written through a sociological lens since I was an undergraduate in the 1990s fantasizing about one day pursuing that as a career path. I was predisposed to find this book engrossing. This book is right up there with what I consider classics of the scholarship by academics like Allison Lurie and Valerie Steele. (Maybe those are just classics to me because they are among the first authors I read in the field.) In the interest of full disclosure...
