Comments on: Zoot Suit

Zoot Suit

y2karl — Wed, 26 May 2004 21:27:49 -0800

By: y2karl

y2karl — Wed, 26 May 2004 21:28:55 -0800

Also, El Pachuco World War Two and the Zoot Suit Riots Los Angeles Times: Zoot Suit Riots Suavecito's Zoot Suit Riots page A Zoot Suit The Sleepy Lagoon Murder Case Pachuquismos

By: wendell

wendell — Wed, 26 May 2004 21:42:10 -0800

Good post, y2vato.

By: undecided

undecided — Wed, 26 May 2004 22:00:09 -0800

"Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot!"

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 26 May 2004 22:02:50 -0800

Why a big suit?

By: LeLiLo

LeLiLo — Wed, 26 May 2004 23:09:01 -0800

Zoot Sims.

By: salmacis

salmacis — Thu, 27 May 2004 00:50:23 -0800

It's not a big suit. David Byrne just has a really small head.

By: Verdant

Verdant — Thu, 27 May 2004 04:22:33 -0800

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 27 May 2004 08:27:44 -0800

Zoot (adj.): overexaggerated as applied to clothes.--from Kaiser L's copy of Cab Calloways Hepster Dictionary (1938) , Click Archiv, click Cab Calloways Hepster Dictionary (1938), Zum Hepster's Dictionary, click Z, 'cause Kaiser L don't allow not direct links... Jessica Bonney asserts that "Zoot" was already common street slang for extravagance on her Fashion of the 1930's page. Zoot the word is apparently always associated with fashion in the time of Zoot Suits and allegedly apparently associated with ganja now.

By: Faze

Faze — Thu, 27 May 2004 08:43:20 -0800

Zoot Man Rollo played in what band? a.) The Necessaries b.) Captain Beefheart c.) Thunderclap Newman d.) Other (name)

By: me3dia

me3dia — Thu, 27 May 2004 08:55:29 -0800

Zoot was my favorite Muppet growing up. But more on topic, I almost bought a zoot suit in Milwaukee a couple years ago, but I didn't have enough cash. They're damn swanky.

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 27 May 2004 08:59:03 -0800

Wow. I usually hate suits and use "suit" as a term with connotations of elitism, businessmen/executives, lack of common sense and callouses, yuppyism, and everything that is contrary to a working class and/or socialist ethic. Yet the zoot suit was once a political/class/artistic statement against the establishment. This is very cool.

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:14:15 -0800

Cool link. I never realized the culture war behind the fashion.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:20:17 -0800

Captain Beefheart. And I thought it was Zoot Horn Rollo. Back on topic, the Zoot Suit Riots and their aftermath provided a lot of the raw material for the second novel in James Ellroy's LA Quartet, The Big Nowhere. I usually hate suits and use "suit" as a term with connotations of elitism, businessmen/executives, lack of common sense and callouses, yuppyism, and everything that is contrary to a working class and/or socialist ethic. Actually, most blue-collar guys I know, when they're not on the job, tend to be sharp dressers, almost excessively so. My old man grew up in a working-class section of New York and even when he was a kid people said you could shoot him and bury him in the same suit. Although he said his dad was a stone cold slob. Maybe the gene skips a generation. In Radical Chic said something to the effect that in the sixties, college-age people tended to dress in jeans, watch caps and pea-coats to identify with the working class, whereas the street kids dressed in sharkskin and brylcreem a la James Brown.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:21:54 -0800

and oh yeah, in high school, I knew a guy named Billy who was in a band who was a dead ringer for that muppet. So much that we actually called him "Zoot." And no he wasn't blue.

By: Faze

Faze — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:43:40 -0800

jonmc -- Thanks for the Zoot Horn Rollo correction. And I agree with about the class aspects of suit wearing. Working class people appreciate a nice suit and look up to a man who has the self-respect to wear one. You have to be pretty well off to scorn good clothes in this world.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:49:38 -0800

You have to be pretty well off to scorn good clothes in this world. I can appreciate 'em. I just don't wear 'em, because I don't feel comfortable in 'em, and my job dosen't require it. So it's jeans, t-shirts and chucks for me. But as a wise man once said "Every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man." There's a racial aspect to the suit-wearing thing, too. It's a generaliztion, but black and hispanic street guys who want to appear cool will dress up sharp and do the bling-bling thing, whereas white street guys will do the biker thing and flout neatness and hygeine rules to make their point. I think it might have to do with flouting cultural expectations.

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:52:43 -0800

Working class people appreciate a nice suit and look up to a man who has the self-respect to wear one. You have to be pretty well off to scorn good clothes in this world. I'll agree with that first bit back in my grandfather's time. He always looked good and always had a good suit and hat, even during the depression when he gleaned coal from the railroad tracks for the stove and shot rabbits for dinner. Now, though, the idea that you have to be rich to scorn the impracticality of expensive clothing that is not durable under physical duress is, well... absolutely, patently ridiculous. Unless you're utterly fooled by the idea that the clothes really do make the man, in which case you're more than welcome to live out your fantasies in the pages of GQ.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:53:19 -0800

"He's got the boogie on his fingers & the hubba-hubba in his soul!" This is all I know about zoot suits.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:58:56 -0800

I'll agree with that first bit back in my grandfather's time. Even now, to a degree, go to club or bar in a working class neighborhood on a friday night. Everyone will be dressed to kill belive me. The mods (famous for their sartorial splendidness) were to a large degree, working-class yobbo's from London's East End. The greasy haired Rockers were working-class kids too, but they tended to be from outlying areas. Maybe it's an urban versus rural thing. Now, though, the idea that you have to be rich to scorn the impracticality of expensive clothing that is not durable under physical duress is, well... absolutely, patently ridiculous. I'd have to agree on that, as I'm a slob myself, and far from rich. But it does tend to be the wealthy who romanticize squalor and slovenliness. So Faze has something of a point.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Thu, 27 May 2004 10:29:24 -0800

Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents Five inches long. I'm out on the street again And I'm leaping along. I'm dressed right for a beachfight, But I just can't explain Why that uncertain feeling is still Here in my brain. - Cut My Hair (Quadrophenia)

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 27 May 2004 12:10:35 -0800

But it does tend to be the wealthy who romanticize squalor and slovenliness. I'm a poor slovenly slob living in squalor. So there! Um, waitaminnit...