No Longer Solely for Masters of the Universe: The Pinstripe Suit (Published 2016) (2024)

“Debonair, that was the word.”

“There was something charming — no, brave — about his style,” Tom Wolfe continues in his novel of 1980s New York, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” describing a lawyer who wears a navy blue, double-breasted pinstripe suit.

Mr. Wolfe, who has paid more attention to clothing than any novelist since Balzac, also dresses his New York bankers, such as the novel’s protagonist, Sherman McCoy, in pinstripe suits. It’s a common enough trope — the Wall Street guy who favors sartorial armor, usually worn with a starched white shirt and Windsor-knot tie — and for good reason. One theory has it that the first pinstripe suits originated as bank uniforms, with different striping to identity employees of different firms.

Pinstripes have long been a symbol of power dressing. Years before Mr. Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe, gangsters like Al Capone wore the pattern to convey bravado and a sense of orderliness.

Now it’s back, but with a difference. Gone are the stiff-shouldered trappings of the traditional power suit. These days, men who are drawn to the sharp look can have it with a softer, almost pajama-like feel.

“When you take the stuffing and the structure out of a navy pinstripe suit, I think it suddenly becomes something you can wear on the weekend,” the designer Michael Kors said. “You can still pair it with a collared shirt and loafers for the office, but you can also wear it with sandals and a henley.”

Referring to the crushed linen pinstripe suit he included in his spring 2016 collection, Mr. Kors added, “It’s the antithesis of something that feels stiff and overly polished.”

The Hermès wool and silk seersucker suit and Salvatore Ferragamo’s pinstripe jumpsuit — reminiscent of the “siren suit” Winston Churchill wore during the Second World War — are all about ease rather than stiff boardroom attire.

“The suit becomes more versatile,” Mr. Kors said, “which I think is what men today want.”