Zoot suit
A zoot suit was a style of clothing first popularized by young Mexican Americans, African Americans, Filipino Americans and Italian Americans in the late 1930s and 1940s. Today, a zoot suit or zooty is also the term given to a style of rowing clothing in Australia (known as a uni suit in the United States.)
Characteristics
A zoot suit has high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed pegged trousers (called tramas) and a long coat (called the carlango) with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. Often zoot suiters wear a felt hat with a long feather (called a tapa or tanda) and pointy, French-style shoes (called calcos). A young Malcolm X described the zoot suit as: "a killer-diller coat with a drape shape, reet pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic's cell." Zoot suits usually featured a key chain dangling from the belt to the knee or below, then back to a side pocket.
Zoot suits were for special occasions – such as a dance or a birthday party. The amount of material and tailoring required made them luxury items. Many young people wore a more moderate version of the "draped" pants or styled their hair in the signature "ducktail."
The oversized suit was both an extravagant personal style and a declaration of rebellious self-assertion. By their dress, Zoot suiters expressed defiance, at a time when fabric was rationed due to the war effort, and in the face of widespread racial prejudice.
History
The Zoot Suit first gained popularity in Harlem jazz culture in the late 1930s where they were initially called "drapes". [1]
The word "zoot", according to the Oxford English Dictionary, probably comes from a reduplication of the word 'suit'. It was probably first coined by Mexican American pachucos as part of their slang, "Caló", evolving from the Mexican Spanish pronunciation of the English word "suit" with the "s" taking on the sound of a "z". In any case, the zoot suit became very popular among young Mexican Americans, especially among those in Los Angeles who styled themselves as "pachucos".
In March of 1942, the War Production Board banned zoot suit production because it deemed the style wasteful of valuable suiting material during wartime. The fashion persisted, despite restrictions placed on the amount of fabric in the production of garments.
In popular culture
Zoot suits were satirized by Al Capp in 1943 in the comic strip Li'l Abner, in which Abner Yokum appeared as "Zoot Suit Yokum", a gullible but near-indestructible man chosen by a clothing manufacturer to serve as role model for white youth through dangerous, staged heroic feats. The story ended with mainstream businessmen also taking to the zoot suit, whereupon it suddenly went out of style.
In a Tom & Jerry short, The Zoot Cat, Tom tries to win the affections of a female cat, but is rejected for being "corny". Sitting on the front porch, he hears an ad on the radio telling Tom that to be a "hep cat" he needs to wear a zoot suit. Tom immediately makes one out of an hammock and re-appears by the female cat, impressing her with his new "hep" clothes. However, when Jerry interferes, the suit gets wet and shrinks so much that the suit winds up fitting Jerry perfectly.
This type of suit inspired the album Zoot Suit Riot, by the American band Cherry Poppin' Daddies. The name of the song was based on the riots caused by military personnel in Los Angeles during World War II, who would beat up any Latino they found wearing a zoot suit.
Zoot Suit is also the name of a musical play by Luis Valdez, featuring music from Daniel Valdez and Lalo Guerrero, the "father of Chicano music." When it debuted in 1979, Zoot Suit was the first Chicano play on Broadway. In 1981, Luis Valdez also directed a filmed version of the play.
Before they found success in the UK in 1965 as the look and voice of the London mod youth culture, British rock group The Who had tried to break into the record market in 1964 as The High Numbers, with a song called Zoot suit. the lyrics, written by their manager and leading mod Peter Meaden, include "I got a zoot suit jacket with side vents five inches long." In mod use, the term zoot suit jacket meant a hip short box jacket with narrow lapels, three buttons and side vents, perhaps in white or ice blue colour. In 1973, The Who released their rock opus, Quadrophenia, dedicated to the mods of the 1960s. A song called 'Cut My Hair' contains the same lyrics about a zoot suit mentioned above.
Zoot suits and the Zoot Suit riots are also referenced in the novel Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.
The prologue in James Ellroy's novel The Black Dahlia is centered around the Zoot Suit riots.
A Zoot Suit is the name of the powered armor in the Starfire novels by David Weber and Steve White
In "Trick Or Treatment," a 1982 episode of M*A*S*H, Max Klinger wears a Zoot Suit as a Halloween costume, and Hawkeye Pierce, dressed in a makeshift Superman costume, asks him, "Klinger, do you know how many zoots had to be killed to make that suit?"
Marty McFly Jr. (Michael J. Fox) uses the term Zoot Suit in the "Back To The Future" trilogy.
Jim Carrey wore a bright yellow ostentatious Zoot Suit when playing the title character in the 1994 film The Mask.
In the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Once More, with Feeling", Sweet wears a Zoot Suit (which he can change the colour of at will).
The early scenes of Spike Lee's film Malcolm X show the famous African-American activist in his younger days. Calling himself Detroit Red, he and his best friend, Shorty (played by Spike Lee) are seen dressed as Zoot Suit kids.
See also
External Links
- The Zoot-Suit and Style Warfare, a well-referenced article by Stuart Cosgrove on the origin and history of the zoot suit and zoot suit riots.
- The Zoot Suit Riots. Article about the zoot suit riots of 1943.