Search: seersucker
Why: Kat got this awesome apron from Anthropologie, which got me thinking about my own Anthropologie items of yore. I had this fun green seersucker skirt that was kind of deconstructed... I wonder if it's still at my parents' house.
Answer: It comes from Hindi sīrsakar, from the Person words shir o shekar, "milk and sugar." This might be due to the resemblance of its smooth and rough stripes to the smooth surface of milk and bumpy texture of sugar.
In the 6th century the Persians borrowed not only the word for sugar from India but sugar itself. During and after Tamerlane's invasion of India in the late 14th century, opportunities for borrowing Persian things and words such as shīroshakar were widespread, since Tamerlane incorporated Persia as well as India into his empire. It then remained for the English to borrow from an Indian language the material and its name seersucker (first recorded in 1722 in the form Sea Sucker) during the 18th century, when the East India Company and England were moving toward imperial supremacy in India.
Source: Wikipedia, Answers.com
The More You Know: There is an annual event called Seersucker Thursday wherein US Senators wear the fabric to Congress, usually on the 2nd or 3rd Thursday in June. The tradition was started by Senator Trent Lott in 1996 to "bring a little Southern charm to the Capitol"and remind the Senate of how Senators dressed before the advent of air conditioning in the 1950s.
it looks sort of silly when you see them all grouped together like that.
ReplyDeleteWell now we just must go yachting so you can sport your fancy boating shoes and seersucker shorts
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