Zoot Suit (style)

Modern zoot suits

The Zoot Suit is a suit with padded shoulders and tapered trousers that was mainly worn by African-Americans , Mexican-Americans , Puerto Ricans , Italian-Americans and Filipino-Americans in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s .

Components

The zoot suit usually consists of high-fitting trousers with wide legs and narrow feet ( Spanish : tramas ), a long coat with wide sleeves and padded shoulders (Spanish : carlango ). In addition, the fedora was usually worn , sometimes with a long, white feather (Spanish: tapa or tanda ) and pointed shoes (Spanish: calcos ). It was also worn as a classic three-piece suit with a man's vest , dress shirt and tie .

history

Men in the Zoot Suit (1942)

This type of suit was initially popular in Harlem's jazz culture , where it became known as drapes in the late 1930s . In Los Angeles , the suit was then adopted by young Mexican Americans , especially the Pachucos . The style then spread across the United States. It was also a trademark of Al Capone . The Zoot Suit Riots in the USA also got their name from the suit.

The style of the zoot suits was also brought to Britain by black immigrants from the Caribbean in the 1940s . In 1948, the English painter Edward Burra depicted a group of young immigrants dressed according to the fashion in a work (watercolor with ink) Zoot Suits .

Going out of fashion in the 1950s, the suit is rarely worn today.

literature

• Ingrid Loschek : Reclam's fashion and costume lexicon. 5th edition Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-010577-3 , p. 507.
• NJ Stevenson: The History of Fashion. Styles, trends and stars. Haupt, Bern et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-258-60032-1 , pp. 142f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heather Maddan: Zooting up: Brighten prom night with flash, dash — and panache. April 29, 2007, accessed September 24, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Serge Marc Durflinger: The Montreal and Verdun Zoot-Suit disturbances of June 1944. Archived from the original on 12 September 2007 ; Retrieved September 24, 2016 (English, original publication: Serge Bernier, ed. L'Impact de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale sur les sociétés canadienne et québécoise, Université du Québec à Montréal et la Direction Histoire et patrimoine de la Défense nationale, Ottawa , 1998). 
3. ^ Michael Giocondo: Zoot Suit revived at the Goodman Theater. Archived from the original on October 16, 2007 ; accessed on September 24, 2016 (English). 
4. ↑ Anne Reimers: A Lawyer’s Passion: Preview of the Evill / Frost Collection . In: FAZ . June 11, 2011, p. 33 .