Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book investigates the transformation of American men’s clothing from the colorful and ornate fashions of the eighteenth-century elite to the plain, dark suits emblematic of modern masculinity. Suitable traces how the adoption of the black suit emerged as a powerful symbol of masculine authority, egalitarian ideals, and social discipline after the American Revolution, fundamentally reshaping notions of identity, propriety, and power. Through a multidisciplinary approach that foregrounds visual analysis, material culture, embodiment, performances of dress and selfhood, and the political register of clothing, the book examines how suits became both everyday garments and engines of social conformity, regulating gender, class, race, and national identity. Across its chapters, the book explores the tangible labor—much of it performed by women, people of color, and the poor—that underpinned the maintenance and manufacture of suits, as well as the technical, scientific, and social engineering that produced the “ideal” male body. It uncovers how suits policed boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, from city streets to halls of government and international diplomacy, rendering white male power both omnipresent and invisible. Suitable argues that the suit’s seeming neutrality and uniformity enabled it to become a pervasive instrument of authority and a subtle mechanism for maintaining social hierarchies. The book ultimately invites readers to critically reassess the legacy and future of the suit, understanding it not only as an article of clothing but as a pivotal agent in both the devaluing of fashion and the fashioning of modern men.</jats:p>