Zoot Suit   A zoot-suit is a long, colorful, extravagant suit that originated in Harlem in the 1930’s.  The suit, known by its flashy look, has pants that are very wide and a jacket that is oversized, often going all the way down to the knees.  The majority of zoot-suit wearers accessorized with a wide tie, gold chains, pointy shoes, and a top hat.  They became especially fashionable in the 30’s and were made popular by jazz artists such as Cab Calloway.

    Even more important than the suit being an extravagant style, the zoot-suit came to represent a message.  “The zoot-suit was more than the drape-shape of 1940s fashion, more than a colorful stage-prop hanging from the shoulders of Cab Calloway, it was, in the most direct and obvious ways, an emblem of ethnicity and a way of negotiating an identify. The zoot-suit was a refusal: a subcultural gesture that refused to concede to the manners of subservience. By the late 1930s, the term "zoot" was in common circulation within urban jazz culture. Zoot meant something worn or performed in an extravagant style, and since many young blacks wore suits with outrageously padded shoulders and trousers that were fiercely tapered at the ankles, the term zoot-suit passed into everyday usage. In the sub-cultural world of Harlem's nightlife, the language of rhyming slang succinctly described the zoot-suit's unmistakable style: 'a killer-diller coat with a drapeshape, real-pleats and shoulders padded like a lunatic's cell. The study of the relationship between fashion and social action is notoriously underdeveloped, but there is every indication that the zoot-suit riots that erupted in the United States in the summer of 1943 had a profound effect on a whole generation of socially disadvantaged youths. It was during his period as a young zoot-suiter that the Chicano union activist Cesar Chavez first came into contact with community politics, and it was through the experiences of participating in zoot-suit riots in Harlem that the young pimp 'Detroit Red' began a political education that transformed him into the Black radical leader Malcolm X. Although the zoot-suit occupies an almost mythical place within the history of jazz music, its social and political importance has been virtually ignored. There can be no certainty about when, where or why the zoot-suit came into existence, but what is certain is that during the summer months of 1943 "the killer-diller coat" was the uniform of young rioters and the symbol of a moral panic about juvenile delinquency that was to intensify in the post-war period.” (http://www.edc.org/CCT/lemcen/u7sf/u7materials/cosgrove.html)

    As mentioned in the previous quote, the zoot-suit wearers moved from a fashion statement to becoming a political statement.  During World War I, a series of riots known as zoot-suit riots began.  These riots were a fight of the oppressed urban black culture (and other oppressed cultures) against the everyday injustices and brutality that they were faced with.  The suits themselves were outlawed during the war because they used too much cloth.
    Throughout the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, zoot-suits were a definite style of the urban black culture.  In addition, they even became associated with riots that fought to free blacks and other oppressed cultures from the injustices of America.
 
 

http://www.edc.org/CCT/lemcen/u7sf/u7materials/cosgrove.html
    Great site on the history of the zoot-suit.

http://web.usf.edu/~lc/MOOs/zootsuit/
    Link to World war II and the zoot-suit riot

http://www.zootsuitstore.com/Shopping/Catalog/zootsuit.asp
    Link to a zoot-suit catalogue where one can purchase authentic zoot-suits