A fabric with alternating smooth and puckered areas, often arranged in stripes.
A Tsudakoma loom patent describes seersucker as a plain-woven cloth with two kinds of warp yarn, ground and puckering. The puckering warp, on its own beam, is let off at a greater length than the ground warp, so the extra yarn bunches into crinkled bands between flat ones. The result, as Cotton Incorporated describes it, is a lightweight cotton with alternating crinkled and smooth vertical stripes, which touches the skin at fewer points and so suits warm weather.
Because the pucker is built into the weave, it is not a finish to be pressed: Cotton Incorporated warns that ironing would remove the textured stripes, and that washing and drying make them more pronounced. It is used for men’s suits, women’s sundresses and home furnishings; the V&A holds a 1930s suit, a jacket with two pairs of trousers, in striped brown and white cotton seersucker.
In job listings
The word is rare in current listings. Bringing a garment in a cloth such as seersucker into production falls to product developers in ready-to-wear, who take it from concept through samples, fittings and industrialization with manufacturers. See current product developer roles.
