ZOOT

Zoot suit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Zoot Suit (disambiguation).

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. (Consider using more specific clean up instructions.) Please improve this article if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions. (February 2009)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009)

A soldier and a woman with two men wearing zoot suits in Washington D.C., 1942

A zoot suit (occasionally spelled zuit suit) is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by Mexican-Americans, African Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and 1940s.^[1][2][3] In Britain the bright-coloured suits with velvet lapels worn by Teddy Boys bore a slight resemblance to zoot suits in the length of the jacket.

Contents [hide] 1 Characteristics 2 History 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Characteristics

Five men in modernized zoot suits

A zoot suit has high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. Often zoot suiters wear a felt hat with a long feather and pointy, French-style shoes. 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".^[4] Zoot suits usually featured a watch chain dangling from the belt to the knee or below, then back to a side pocket.
The amount of material and tailoring required made them luxury items, so much so that the U.S. War Production Board said that they wasted materials that should be devoted to the World War II war effort.^[5] This extravagance during wartime was a factor in the Zoot Suit Riots.^[6] Wearing the oversized suit was a declaration of freedom and self-determination, even rebelliousness.^[6]

[edit] History

Al Capp's 1943 satirical drawing

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word zoot probably comes from a reduplication of suit. The creation and naming of the zoot suit have been variously attributed to Harold C. Fox, a Chicago clothier and big-band trumpeter;^[7] Louis Lettes, a Memphis tailor;^[8] and Nathan (Toddy) Elkus, a Detroit retailer.^[9][10]
Zoot suits first gained popularity in Harlem jazz culture in the late 1930s, where they were initially called drapes.^[11] The zoot suit became very popular among young Mexican Americans, especially pachucos in Los Angeles. Anti-Mexican youth riots in Los Angeles during World War II are known as the Zoot Suit Riots.