--- title: Burkini Commenter Says We Should Ban Men's Suits description: A Londoner wrote a letter to The Guardian posing a powerful point about the recent burkini ban. Why canonical: https://time.com/4475084/burkini-ban-suit-letter/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-31T22:12:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:03:16.935Z og:title: This Guy Thinks We Should Ban Men's Suits—Not Burkinis og:description: 'A man in a suit led us on a disastrous and illegal war' — letter to the editor og:url: https://time.com/4475084/burkini-ban-suit-letter/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt643f343cef0234c5/6988a472fb4eac41d788ef28/burkini-ban-suit-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Businessman Front of Blackboard og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Guy Thinks We Should Ban Men's Suits—Not Burkinis twitter:description: 'A man in a suit led us on a disastrous and illegal war' — letter to the editor twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt643f343cef0234c5/6988a472fb4eac41d788ef28/burkini-ban-suit-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Guy Thinks We Should Ban Men's Suits—Not Burkinis by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Aug 31, 2016 10:12 PM UTC  Businessman Front of Blackboard Businessman Front of BlackboardGetty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Aug 31, 2016 10:12 PM UTC Londoner “Henry Stewart” [wrote a letter](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/29/women-in-burkinis-and-men-in-suits) to _The Guardian_ making a powerful point about the recent burkini ban. Why worry about burkinis or burqas, Stewart wonders, when it’s men—in suits, specifically—that we ought to be worried about? Stewart begins his short letter by writing, “No woman in a burqa (or a hijab or a [burkini](http://motto.time.com/4468799/muslim-designer-burkini-bikini/)) has ever done me any harm.” Suited men, however, are different. --- > “” --- A high court in France recently overturned the burkini ban from happening in Villeneuve-Loubet, a small town near Nice. The court cited that the ban “seriously, and clearly illegally, breached the fundamental freedoms to come and go, the freedom of beliefs and individual freedom,” TIME wrote. [Perhaps to some people’s dismay, burkini sales](http://motto.time.com/4466233/burkini-sales-french-ban/) have gone up 200% since the ban. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4475084/burkini-ban-suit-letter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4475084/burkini-ban-suit-letter/"},"headline":"This Guy Thinks We Should Ban Men's Suits—Not Burkinis","datePublished":"2016-08-31T22:12:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:03:16.935Z","description":"'If we are to start telling people what to wear, maybe we should ban suits'","url":"https://time.com/4475084/burkini-ban-suit-letter/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt643f343cef0234c5/6988a472fb4eac41d788ef28/burkini-ban-suit-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt643f343cef0234c5/6988a472fb4eac41d788ef28/burkini-ban-suit-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Businessman Front of Blackboard","caption":"Businessman Front of Blackboard","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4475084/burkini-ban-suit-letter/","name":"This Guy Thinks We Should Ban Men's Suits—Not Burkinis"}}]}] ```