THE ZOOT SUIT IS ALIVE AND WELL AT THE VFW IN CHICAGO!!!!!!!!! One theory of the origins of the zoot suit was that it was imitated from the suit worn by Clark Cable in the movie Gone with the Wind. In fact, some people called them Gone with the Wind suits. Others say that a big band leader and clothier, Harold C. Fox from Chicago, designed the first zoot suit. He said he copied the fashions of ghetto-dwelling teenagers, and in 1941 made such suits for musicians who wanted an eye-poppin style. When Fox died in 1996 at the age of 86, he was buried in a lavender zoot suit. The most believed story is one published in the New York Times in 1943 during the zoot suit riots taking place in Los Angeles, stating that a young African-American busboy from Gainesville, Georgia, placed an order with a tailor for what would be the first zoot suit on record. Clyde Duncan ordered a suit with a 37-inch-long coat and with pants 26 inches at the knees and 14 inches at the ankle. Once the suit was made, the tailor took his picture and sent it to Mens Apparel Reporter. NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 11, 1943--ZOOT SUIT ORIGINATED IN GEORGIA; BUSBOY ORDERED FIRST ONE IN 1940, By Meyer Berger--Later historians may argue the point but J.V.D. Carlyle, fashion editor for Men s Apparel Reporter, the trades authority, seemed convinced yesterday that the first zoot suit on record was ordered early in February, 1940, at Frierson-McEvers in Gainesville, Ga. The garment so startled A. C. McEver, conservative half of Frierson-McEver, that when the zoot suit was ready he photographed the purchaser, who was Clyde Duncan, a busboy in Gainesville, and sent the pictures to Mens Apparel Reporter. It was published in the February, 1941, issue.... The trade was amused. It was amused that Clyde Duncan was one of those whimsical people who turn up at a tailors occasionally with extraordinary ideas, and let it go at that. They were astonished when the killer diller caught on in Mississippi, New Orleans and Alabama and leap-frogged to Harlem.... There have been reports that the zoot suit was inspired by authentic Civil War garb worn by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. In several scenes he appears in a long coat and peg trousers. The report may be true. Gone with the Wind opened in Georgia in December, 1939, a few months before Clyde Duncan upset the Gainesville tailors with his order.... About a year to eighteen months ago, when the garment trades realized that the zoot suit had caught on with sharpies -the hep cats or swing-mad kids - they began turning them out. The suits were listed under the trade term extremes, but in April, 1944, when the WPB [War Preparedness Board] cloth conservation order banned pleats, cuffs and long jackets, all legal manufacturers dropped the zoot. Bootleg tailors then took them up and still put them out. In New York City, Harlem is the zoot suit center. High school age children from all parts of the city go to Harlem for them. Prices range from $18 to $75.... Hep-cat terms for the zoot suit are actually meaningless. A rear pleat is merely an exaggerated pleat. It had its origin in assonance which colors all hep-cat slang. Zoot suit is another example. The V-knot tie, the zoot chain the shirt collar, the tight stuff cuff, the wide, flat hat and the Dutch-toe shoes of the zoot-suiter, Mr Carlyle said, simply display the hep-cats tendency toward exaggeration in all things. The zoot suit was a style of clothing popularized by young male African Americans, Filipino Americans, and Mexican Americans during the 1930s and 1940s. A zoot suit consisted of very baggy high-waisted pants, pegged around the ankles, worn with a long jacket that came to below the knee. The jacket had high, wide shoulder pads that jetted out from the shoulder, giving the wearer a broad look. A longchain dangled from the belt, and the outfit was trimmed with thick-soled shoes and a wide-brimmed hat. It was the style of very hip cats. It is believed the style was created in the African-American community, and there are several stories as to where it actually originated. In the urban jazz culture of Harlem, the word zoot meant something exaggerated, either in style, sound, or performance. The style of dress was an extravagant style, out of proportion to the norm, and it later came to be known as the zoot suit, which consisted of a killer-diller coat with a drape-shape, reat-pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatics cell. The suit was for having fun, with the baggy pants made for dancing the jitterbug, and the long coat and the wide-brimmed hat giving the wearer a grown-up look. Many famous black entertainers and musicians wore the zoot suit. Duke Ellington performed at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles in 1941 with a musical number called Jump for Joy, and all his performers wore zoot suits. Cab Calloway wore a zoot suit in the 1943 film Stormy Weather. On the West Coast, the suit came to be identified with young Mexican Americans, known as Pachucos. They were mostly second-generation Mexicans, the sons of working-class immigrants, who settled in Los Angeles. Pachucos created a subculture with a mysterious argot that incorporated archaic Spanish, modern Spanish, and English slang words. They dressed in zoot suits, creating a distinct style that identified them as neither Mexican nor American, but that emphasized their social detachment and isolation. Because there was a war going on, and there was conservation of fabric, wearing the zoot suit was considered an unpatriotic act. In the summer of 1943, while the whole country watched, gangs of sailors and zoot-suiters fought in the streets of Los Angeles. Outraged at the zoot suit style, sailors chased the zoot suiters through the streets and unclothed them. It is unclear if this was a race riot or a riot of patriotism by the sailors who attacked, beat, and stripped young Mexican Americans whom they perceived to be disloyal immigrants. The Zoot-Suit and Style Warfare ...zoot-suits smouldered in the ashes of street bonfires where they had been tossed by grimly methodical tank forces of service men.... The zooters, who earlier in the day had spread boasts that they were organized to kill every cop they could find, showed no inclination to try to make good their boasts.... Searching parties of soldiers, sailors and Marines hunted them out and drove them out into the open like bird dogs flushing quail. Procedure was standard: grab a zooter. Take off his pants and frock coat and tear them up or burn them. Trim the Argentine Ducktail haircut that goes with the screwy costume. The zoot suit received wide attention and recognition in the 1970s with the production of the play Zoot Suit, written and produced by Luis Valdez. It was performed in Los Angeles and New York. A film of the play, with the same name, was released in 1981 with performances by actors Daniel Valdez and Edward James Olmos. In the late 1990s, the zoot suit has had a rebirth with the revival of swing music—with imitations of Cab Calloway, the zoot suit, and the jump dance steps. From Chicago to San Francisco, twenty-somethings were dancing to big bands with names like Mighty Blue Kings, The Big Six, Bag Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Indigo Swing, who played swing music from the 1930s and 1940s. Part of the fun of this music was dancing at the big clubs and wearing the clothes to match.A 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times claimed that fashion designers such as Bill Blass and Ralph Lauren were picking up the zoot suit look in their fall designs, including wide jacket lapels and hip-chains, but not the big shoulders. In 1999, numerous suppliers of zoot suits and swing-style clothing were listed on the Internet.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 04:03:25 +0000
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