It went with the territory. The American dream was rubbish. They would never be admitted to white middle class America. The New Deal was no deal. Why should they appease the same set of values that corralled then forcibly placed Japanese and German Americans into internment camps? …
There is an interesting book out by Kathy Peiss on the subject of all thing, the zoot suit. Its a cultural artifact, that may have been one of the first urban fashions; one linked in part to Lindy-hop dancing and the jazz men and hepsters who were so to inspire Allan Ginsberg and the Beats. At the heart of the book is the rhetorical question of whether the zoot suit as cultural symbol was a threat to wartime America or an expression of the ostensible freedoms that the country was fighting for. Either way its amusing how some baggy gladrags could be associated with unpatriotic deed, inacceptable ideology as scrimping and saving citizenry were confronted by a marginalized culture who couldn’t care less, yet were vilified to serve as a good pretext for ole’ time racism.
---Cab Calloway.---But what of Malcolm Little, the zoot suiter who would become Malcolm X? There are academics who like to say that his sharpie style was his first expression of protest: "Malcolm X is widely accepted as evidence of the zoot suiter as a figure of resistance," Ms. Peiss writes. But she dissents: It was Malcolm X's eventual rejection of such gaudy frivolities, she says, that signaled his radical ideological transformation.---Read More:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303661904576456411159055844.html?mod=googlenews_wsj image:http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?2382-Zoot-Suits
Eric Felten:Ms. Peiss argues that the zoot-suit riots, as the series of street fights came to be called, were actually old-fashioned race riots. In any case, a style that had managed to overcome some racial barriers ended up as a pretext for racial violence. The distinctive clothes had originated with urban African-Americans, who looked to dress “down to the bricks” by exaggerating the drape of English bespoke tailoring (the sort of suits favored by the Prince of Wales and Cary Grant). But the extreme drape-shape was embraced by swing-besotted white teens as well as by Mexican-American youth, making the style a rather confused stand-in for race….
---At core, zoot suiters were rebellious outcasts, young minority groups who believed themselves victims of social suppression and unfairly-treated social rejects. They resented the culture that had cast them out and were determined to defiantly flaunt what made them different. Their odd manners and dress were symbols of defiance calculated to prove the worth of their own values and way of life. Their peculiar manner of speech—their jive talk—echoed in the zoot suit song, was a flag that signaled their differences; it was meant to distance those who didn't belong, as was their flamboyant style of dress.---Read More:http://electricka.com/etaf/muses/music/gone_but_not_forgotten/second_world_war_era/zoot_suit/zoot_suit_page2.htm
…As Ms. Peiss tells it, the zoot suit became particularly problematic in Los Angeles when ethnic sensitivities prompted the adoption of an unhelpful journalistic shorthand. The California press found itself chastised by the Mexican government for telling lurid stories of young Mexican-American delinquents and their gangs. Urged by U.S. officials not to offend a wartime ally, the papers stopped using the word “Mexican” and, with a wink and a nod, warned instead of “zoot suiters.” A style that in many quarters had been regarded as unpatriotic came to be synonymous with downright criminality. Read More:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303661904576456411159055844.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
…But the bulk of zoot suiters had good cause to believe themselves immune from the kinds of bad news that was filling newspaper pages. They could care less about who just won or lost a major battle in far away Europe or Asia or whether the tide of war might soon be turning in favor of the U.S.. They were largely oblivious to such matters. Moreover, they had good reason to believe that living conditions for them would remain the same after the war. They were bored and had little else to do but party; so what did they have to lose by having a ball?…
---If we take a look back, even just for a few generations - we’ll see that this is how almost all iconic fashions are started. Think of the most typical depiction you can of any decade… You’d wear a zoot suit in the 1940’s, a leather jacket and blue jeans in the 1950’s. You’d be a hippie in the 70’s and a punk in the 80’s, and if we’re far enough away to remember the 90’s you’d probably look like Kurt Cobain. Every one of these styles ended up in mainstream fashion – every price point and market from high school kids to high-end designers to Middle America malls. Those styles are now the archetypes for their decade, and every one of them came from the street. They started as rebellion – with young people from poor economic backgrounds with insurrection on their minds.--- Read More and Image:http://sexandstatus.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html
…For reasons like these, as a social class Zoot suiters were cool at a time when cool was out (not in) for the rest of the nation. They were young, second-class jive cats who were out of work at a time when factories were buzzing full-time and out of uniform when twenty million men were fully committed to war. But others in America did have something to lose. For America, the age of the flapper was dead and gone forever; the U.S. was now reeling from the double blows of depression and world war. Garish fabrics and bright colors were out; blacks and grays and olive drab were in. This was no time for a block party as far as the rest of the country was concerned; this was a time to wear black…
---What really propelled swing, however, was jitterbugging, the new name the Lindy Hop acquired as it was danced by more and more white dancers. Back in the 1930’s, the jitterbug could scare the establishment just as much as Elvis’s pelvis did two decades later (and boy did his hips set both the girls and their parents off – for very different reasons)! ---Read More:http://www.akswing.com/archive4.htm
…The full-length jackets and sleeves, the copious folds in extra-long baggy pants and cuffs, were making the wrong statement at the wrong time. It was bad enough that cloth was rationed. Far worse, mothers were sewing blue and gold stars on small blue and white pennants hanging in frontroom windows, each star a sign of a son or other family member killed or wounded in the Service. To the rest of the nation, zoot suits were a symbol for outrage.Read More:http://electricka.com/etaf/muses/music/gone_but_not_forgotten/second_world_war_era/zoot_suit/zoot_suit_page2.htm
ADDENDUM:
Ms. Peiss says that those who wore them were not, by and large, trying to make a statement with their clothes. Sharpies and jitterbugs were interested in clothing for its own sake. Fabric, stitching, shape, texture, color—all combined for visual effect and tactile sensation. Yes, the zoot-suit wearers expressed a group identity, as the fashion-conscious will, but they were not lodging a coded protest. The zoot suit wasn’t a way to tweak the Man; it was a way to get the girl. Read More:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303661904576456411159055844.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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