Brooks Brothers suits and Abraham Lincoln

Factual Questions
1

Is it true that Brooks Brothers has not made a black suit since the 1860’s because Lincoln was assassinated in a black, Brooks Brothers suit?

(Interesting aside: three presidents have been assassinated while wearing Brooks Brothers suits: Lincoln, McKinley, and Kennedy.)

“For what a man had rather were true, he more readily believes” - Francis Bacon

2

http://www.brooksbrothers.com/info/timeline.htm

The site above gives a timeline of Brooks Brothers, and it confirms that Lincoln was shot in his Brooks Brothers coat; however, it does not mention the coat.

According to the URL below, Brooks Brothers did in fact serve JFK but does not mention McKinley in the list of the several presidents it has served.

http://www.brooksbrothers.com/info/history2.htm

“[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged… that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more.” – Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

3

Quoted in http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton/Lincoln45.html :

Well, he did wear a black coat, and searching the Brooks Brothers catelog online, I wasn’t able to find a single black suit. I still can’t be sure, though: the quote above is from an AOL user and therefore not as reliable as an official source. Even if the facts mentioned on the site are true, I don’t have any information linking Honest Abe’s assasination to the end of tailored black suits by Brooks Brothers.

“[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged… that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more.” – Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

4

Abe: True.
Black suits: Was true, but not anymore. A few years ago the company began producing a 3-button SB3 suit that’s black.

5

Not to high jack too badly, but are Brooks Brothers’ suits considered to be quality? The fact that presidents wear the implies so, but for some reason I had always had the impression that they were low-end…

6

I have a black BB suit. I bought it about a year ago.

7

And I have a black BB suit too… not that I count, being a female and all.

8

BB suits are really good quality. It’s hard to go higher quality than theirs without getting custom or without getting something so trendy it can only be worn one season.

9

Wow, an oldie, but a goodie! How does a four year old thread get ressurrected?

10

As long as we’re doomed to relive old threads, we may as well take advantage of newer information. Here is a spokeswoman from BB debunking the myth.

I think that most men’s suits were black in the Nineteenth Century. If Brooks Brothers would have stopped selling them, they would have gone out of business!

11

If Abe was killed in a BB suit, was does he continue to advertise for them every February?

12

BB suits are fairly good quality, but hardly top of the line.

At their site, the suits are $698-898. That’s not at all expensive these days. A suit at Nordstrom can easily run $1000.

And that would buy you a button if you had a suit custom-tailored by Armani.